Snowflake on ice
by dhalpin3
Summary: Update 10/22/15 new chapter 2 (new part 6, moved the other parts down), the estrangement with Kitty. A series of short vignettes on Illyana's time in the X-Brig. During her incineration she had only minor roles, yet she had major impacts. Here are some possibilities on what may have gone on during her imprisonment.
1. Chapter 1

**Snowflake on Ice**

Author's note: A series of short vignettes on Illyana's time in the X-Brig. During her incineration she had only minor roles, yet she had major impacts. Here are some possibilities on what may have done on during her imprisonment.

This is my update to the story after I wrote (There are no snowflakes in hell). I've also added new sections and corrected various typos (and likely added new typos, sigh...).

I added enhanced various sections and added three new sections. Gym time with Betty, A Hank and Emma discussion, and a secret guest star from my (in progress story) Top Gear X.

Additional update 5/25/15. I've added some dream sequences sections and did some minor updates. Yes this appears to be a never ending cycle as I keep all my on ice short stories merged into this document. Good ideas keep cropping up.

Additional update 6/24/15 Added another Dani story that also has a Illyana reflection in it and a brief encounter with Professor X (not quite sure I like the Professor X one but it is rather emotional).

Please email me any snowflake on ice ideas for a vignette if you have one.

As always reviews are **wanted**!

BONUS, the story ends with the battle with Dr. Strange (always wanted to have seen that story told).

**Part 1 How do you confine one such as her?**

_"Thanks for all your help Stephan"_ Scott said.

Scott, Dr Stephan Strange, and Emma Frost were sitting in Scott's private reception area (comfy chairs scattered about the room each with a small drink table). Dr Strange had just put down his coffee mug (black no sugar) while Scott continued to sip from his (some coffee with his cream and sugar) and Emma sipped her tea (F&amp;M imperial blend for those who want to know).

_"Physical containment we can handle, but, well the mystical is a bit out of our league". _

_"No thanks needed Scott" _Strange replied, "_It's been awhile and I've always liked the bay area. Tell me though, how long do you plan on confining her, it's not everyday somebody plays Russian roulette with the fate of the world"._

Emma and Scott glanced at each other. _"Not really sure at this point"_ answered Emma _"She risked everything and everybody for her own benefit, we can't trust her and we certainly can't let her loose"._

Strange resumed an earlier conversational offer "_And your sure you don't want to let the Avengers or Shield handle her?_ _There are other organizations that have experience with incarcerating magical entities". _

_"No, not at this time" _replied Scott _"So far she's complied with all that has been demanded of her. Frankly I was concerned that she would refuse to allow her imprisonment and after this whole destruction of the elder gods episode we have to consider her quite dangerous. I'm glad that Illyana is complying. Now if she escapees or decides to no longer comply then we'll need to revisit the issue with you". _

_"No problem Scott, I understand, she's family to the X-Men"_ Strange replied with a slight nod. _"Danger understands how to invoke the precast incantations and the confinement wards are self renewing. I'll check in every few weeks to make sure that the spells are still good". _

_"Is there anything else about your examination of her that we should know"_ Emma inquired?

"_Mrs. Rasputin continues to be quite, well... intriguing" _Dr. Strange mused while rubbing his chin with his right hand (all while trying to appear suitably mystical, mages must keep up appearances with the lay public).

_"She is quite unique in that she was demonic and soulless but now actually appears to have an actual soul. In addition she appears oddly when viewed with certain examination spells"._

_"Oddly"_ asked Scott with some concern, _"Could you provide more detail"? _

_"Think of a record or a spliced set of movie film"_ Dr Strange said after some thought.

_"Mss Rasputin is jittery at an aura level. The record appears to keep skipping to different tracks, not continuously but from time to time. If I use a film analogy then she goes from 16mm to 72mm, black and white to color, faded and scratchy to new and shinny. Now jumble it together, 16mm black and white to 72mm Color, then it gets scratchy, then 16mm but still colored and scratchy, and then, well you get the point, jittery. I believe this is another indication that she really has regained her soul and is likely in some transitional state. How long will this transition state will last, assuming it ever ends, is unknown; assuming that this actually is a transitional state. This might just truly reflect what the aura of the demonic mixed with soul looks like". _

Dr. Strange briefly thought upon his academia publishing plans "_This should make for a good paper for Mystics quarterly; ha Victor and his weak paper on Latveria mystic standing stones and their uses in ritual folk dancing"._

_"Well, if you don't mind I'll be off",_ with an answering nod from Scott Dr Strange then crossed his arms while waving his hands with his fingers in certain positions and faded away (to fisherman's wharf to play tourist for an hour).

Emma stood up while Scott leaned back in the chair and stretched, _"I still think she's better off confined elsewhere"_ Emma stated. _"Strange is right, this is magical and we just don't really have the understanding". _

_"Yep, your right"_ Scott replied as he stood, "_but as long as Illyana is complying the reasons for keeping her here are still valid",_ Scott started ticking off the points as they left the conference room.

_"First, Peter would never allow us to send her away; she really is family for some of us"._

_"Second, teleporters of her abilities are rare to say the least, not to mention the ability to navigate time"._

_"Third, Stephan summed it up nicely with the word magical. We really don't have anybody who really understands magic, well with Magik we have our own in-house expert"._

_"Fourth, look how many Utopians we assembled in case she resisted, we have to confront the fact we actually don't know the real extent of Illyana's abilities or power levels. That power is better here under our care and frankly on our side"._

_"Fifth, her ability to plan and execute to plan is phenomenal. If you take her statement at face value then she manipulated everybody and even existence itself to arrive at the point where the elder gods ended up destroyed and she regained her soul. That kind of strategic and tactical planning we need on our side, not against us"._

_"Sixth, Illyana appears to actually want to stay here. Considering one through five it behooves us to retain she"._

_"And Seventh..."_

_"I know, I saw the power point slides as well" _finished a slightly exasperated Emma. _ "Anybody who could have done all this could easily have planed for the outcomes that resulted. We could still be walking paths she has laid out for us. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer"._

**Part 2: Impoundment**

_"Ok Bobby, explain again why us"?_

James Proudstar (Warpath) and Bobby Drake (Iceman) were standing outside of Illyana Rasputin's door to her domical on Utopia. The door was currently covered with an X of yellow warning tape and a yellow PostIt (from the desk of Frost) informing one and all that this room was off limits.

_"Well..."_ Bobby slowly went over the reasons as they both looked at the sign behind the yellow warning tape.

Illyana's room had one of the those cute signs on it that denoted if the person was in the room or not; well the little skulls around it made it a bit less cute. Illyana's sign was a caricature of her in her current yellow/black new mutants uniform (think X-Babies). The sign currently read **The Demon Sorcerers is: Incarcerated**. The caricature of Illyana was behind bars with a little word bubble saying _"Grrrrr"_ as Illyana hung onto the bars. Ordinarily that would be cute. Ordinarily. Illyana had been taken straight to her cell from the meeting room and had not been back to her room.

_"Dani and all of her team frankly laughed at Scott. Said something about how they learned never to go into her room back at Xavier's and weren't about to get stupid now". _

_"Who put up the tape?"_

_"Northstar, did it as fast as he could". _

_"Did it say incarcerated then"?_

_"Nope, he said the sign said __**Busted**__". _

_"Ok, as if I wasn't before I am now official creeped out. Who else wimped"? _

_"Namor had official business, or so he said. Erik apparently agreed with Dani. None of the telepaths will even come close to this door; heck or even this floor. They had to install extra psychic shielding in her room as the telepaths kept insisting that she was giving them bad dreams. It also turns out nobody lives below her and nobody else currently lives on this floor. Oh, and Dr. Strange said, and I quote (Not on your life)"._

_"Not helping, that is so not helping" _James grumbled as he took down the yellow tape.

_"We were apparently next on the list and were dumb enough to say yes. You got that ritual sequence from Scott"? _

_"Yea. He said Illyana offered to take down the protection wards but they didn't trust her to not be planning something. She gave Scott a phrase that is apparently some kind of back door to the enchantments. She also said that there is nothing dangerous in her room. Strange said she was telling the truth but notice the vast group of onlookers we have"._

Bobby looked around the empty hallway.

_"Yep. Why do I feel that we just got handed the wrong end of the stick"?_

_"Because we did Bobby, we did. Ok, stand back_". James took a sheet of paper from his pocket and clearly spoke the following words. _**"Indignum dumbasses appropinquaret exercitus. Da illis nolite malignari insipientibus in eis".**_

Bobby was rather offended._ "Really? We get called dumbasses in Latin? She is so not funny"._

_"Ready"?_

_"Ready"._

James waved the electromagnetic lock card at the door handle and the lock could be heard to click. James slowly opened the door (which opened without the ominous creak they had been expecting).

_"Oh My God" _James gasped in horror.

_"What?! What?" _Bobby asked trying to see around James.

_"I don't think she's done laundry for over a week"_ James laughed as he stepped inside the room and now Bobby could see a laundry basket of dirty cloths lying on the bed.

_"Bastard, you had me going there for a second" _Bobby complained while giving a nervous laugh and punching James's shoulder. Bobby joined James in the room.

James did a brief verbal description as he examined the room, _"Bit small, no windows, one closet. Just like the drawing and records show. Oh and she's apparently into thongs, like most of the woman here". _

_"James"!_

_"They are on the top of the basket Bobby, unlike you I looked at the contents of the room". _

_"So now what"? _James asked as he opened the closet._ "Nothing of interest in here either, just cloths and some stuffed animals. Are we supposed to tear the room apart looking for something"?_

_"Na, they just wanted us to take a look. They figured if Illyana actually went to the trouble to hide something then it would stay hid. Wait a second, stuffed animals"?_

_"Yea, old as well" _James replied as he took the box out of the closet and placed it on the bed.

Bobby took a brief inventory. Kermit the frog, several other Muppets that he could not name, and an old torn dirty bear.

Bobby scratched his head, "_Well that's weird, but she's a strange one" _he mused as he put the box back in the closet. _"We done"?_

_"Yea we're done for now. Delightfully anticlimactic. Let's get the hell out of here"._

Bobby and James locked the door and put the tape back on and quickly walked away.

Unnoticed on the floor of the closet was a small dusty piece of paper that had fallen off the box of stuffed animal. **Illyana, age 7, OBE, ****Not Fair!** Kitty would have been able to identify the handwriting as it was hers. Back when she has packed up some of Illyana's things when Illyana 1.0 had first returned from Limbo.

The box was dusty, the animals were not.

**Part 3: An unexpected visitor**

Illyana was resigned to filling out a yet another questioner from the X-Club. A recent song that she had found, before she was imprisoned, was playing (One more by Journey) on the cell's speakers (at subdued volume, Danger controlled the volume controls).

Wicked prophets kill... speaking his name  
In the glory of an innocent age  
A king is born to a house filled with rage  
One man's fear is another man's truth, one fear

The blind suffer at the hands of sin  
Lines are drawn where the boundaries begin  
Ten thousand broken, by the madness within  
Broken

[Chorus:]  
One more, cry in the night... one more  
One more, war left to fight ...one more  
One life, cut down by fire  
Once child's, angry desire... one more

...

...

In general Illyana was not a Journey fan, but this was a good song. It spoke sometimes to some of her moods.

Question: Favorite TV show.

Answer: Hannibal on NBC

Ha, let them chew on that (although it actually was her favorite show). The broken aspects of Hannibal appealed to her, although Hannibal's journey was the opposite of her own. His was human to demon, while her's was... Well her's was still a work in progress.

Illyana was pondering the next question (Name a song that makes you feel happy) when Danger announced that she had an unscheduled, but approved, visitor and the music cut off.

The door to her cell block opened and Charles Xavier of all people walked in; dressed, as he was his want, in his usual brown two piece suit.

_"Illyana I'd like some moments of your time"._

Illyana was rather surprised by her visitor, although her face did not show it. She had avoided him from the outset and had been nothing but curt with him whenever there was any dialog or interaction that she could not avoid. She put down the questioner and sat up straighter.

"_What would you like Professor"_? Her helpful words not echoed by the coldness in her tone.

Xavier walked half way up to her transparent cell wall and crossed his arms. _"I'm extremely upset and disappointed with you on how you used not only my son, but the X-men in general"._

_"You are not alone in that disapproval, hence my currently domicile"_.

_"This is your only warning Illyana. Keep away from my son from now on. I finally have a chance to help him. To rectify his issues and I won't you or anybody else screw this up for me". _

_"Then you can rest easy on that point at least. The agreements between David and myself are complete. We have each done what was agreed between us. Any future interaction between us would be purely social. And..." _Illyana held up her arms showing in more detail her bomb jacket _"Not likely to be happening any time soon". _

Xavier said nothing but simply glared at Illyana in concentration.

_"Still can't get in I see"_ Illyana rebuked after a length of time while smiling a bitter mocking grin.

_"No" _Xavier grudgingly replied after a few more seconds._ "Which leaves me having to trust your word, which I point out is quite lacking in value at this time. If you were to allow me access to your thoughts I could at attempt to verify the sincerity of your words; something that I think you owe me". _

_"Owe you"? _Illyana's tone was no longer cold, instead it was rather incredulous.

_"Yes owe me. You used my son. I feel it's only fair". _

Illyana and Xavier exchanged stares for several long seconds while Illyana pondered the request. In the end Illyana replied with a soft _"no"_ and broke eye contact. She shook her head several times and then paced up and down her cell a few times. In the end she actually ended up laying down on her bunk and staring at the ceiling.

_"Have the courtesy to at least face me young lady"._

_"You should go Professor. You don't know what you ask for and you would not like the outcome, where as I... I think I'd like that so very much". _

_"No I simply will not just go. Explain yourself. The Illyana I remember was stubborn but never so rude or blatantly obnoxious as you have been". _

_"Yesss" _Illyana slowly replied._ "She remembers. Remembers far more then just simple courtesies". _Illyana sat back up and faced Xavier, he was surprised to find her face filled with angry rage.

_"She remembers many things. Such as how she thought of you as a type of surrogate father. Stern but fair. How she thought that you only wanted to help her. She also remembers how desperate she was to trying escape the road she was on. How one person forced her against her will back upon that road. Negated any free will. Took away her choices. A road that lead to her suicide in self loathing, madness and fear. Shards so much fear. All because just one time a telepath was able to access her mind and force her to do what __**HE**__ thought was best". _

_"How you must of found her so annoying. A mind you could not read. A mind you could not alter. A mind that would remember if you altered everybody else's memories. I have to wonder if that was why you left and only came back after she was dead"._

_"How easy you convinced the others to accept your decision. How easy Karma acquiesced to your instructions to control her and force her back into limbo and once again assume her unwanted existence. Almost as if they had mental back doors that allowed you to influence them. Gee but that would have been wrong. But do as I say not as I do is oh so convenient. She checked afterwards, that was why she was somewhat estranged but not hateful towards them. She learned the oh so little trick that you pulled. Magik had magic, and she learned. She knew. And that broke yet another piece of her". _

Xavier defended himself._ "I acted with the best of intentions, I had the weigh the welfare of a group of children entrusted to me against the disagreements of one child. I had no way of knowing what your fate was to be". _

_"My fate..." _Illyana's eyes narrowed with disdain._ "My fate was to be created in her image, with all her suffering, only to have it amplified a million fold because I was insufficiently her. I really do want to open my mind to you just once. Just once. Just to let you experience what your decisions caused, what they made. What she and I went through because... __**You**__. __**Knew**__. __**Better**__. Illyana hated you for what you did to her. Where as I am what I am in no small thanks to you. Such is my inheritance and your legacy. Yes I owe you, but not what you think"._

Illyana stood up and turned her back to him.

_"I wish to speak with you no more. I meant what I said to Scott. I am done with vengeance for the past. I seek a better path. I seek to recall the better part of your dream. But not you. Not now, likely not ever". _

Danger's voice filled the chamber. _"Professor please exit the cell block. Your access to the prisoner has been temporally revoked. Interaction with you is apparently the stimuli in triggering all kinds of magical sensors and threshold level one has been breached. This is your one warning, failure to comply will be... Unpleasant for all involved". _

Xavier looked like he wanted to argue with Danger, but remembered his access briefing. He silently turned and exited the cell, only pausing to state _"I'm sorry that you suffered"._

_"Not more then I"_ Illyana softly whispered as he left, _"Not more then her"_.

**Part 4: The Dreaming**

Illyana dreamed:

Sleep always came infrequently to Illyana 2.0. Like the original Illyana 1.0, this Illyana slept far less the than a normal baseline human. Being imprisoned in the X-brig just meant days were extra long and dreary for one such as her. Little to do, little to do it with. Sleep would ordinarily be the ideal escape for most prisoners so confined, but Illyana tended to dislike her dreams.

The distinctions between nightmares and dreams was mostly lost on Illyana, dreaming was mostly a chore to be done, not a pleasant activity. Dreams of things she had done, many of which were not her finer moments. Dreams of things that had been done to her, better left unrecalled as far as she was concerned. Dreams of things she wanted but knew she could never have, in many ways the worst of all.

But now her dreams had begun to change, were becoming... different. Her mindscape was changing. Memories that had for so long been painted in colorless shades of grey were now beginning blossom with color and detail. Complex emotions were also joining the party.

This resulted in some of the dreams actually being pleasant and enjoyable, even if they left her with longing. Simple things that had so long be absent from the dreaming were beginning to move back into the neighborhood as it were.

A game of hide and seek with Lockheed on the Xavier school grounds.

Flying in a jet far above the ground looking at the grand canyon.

Being back in school attending classes with the New Mutants, panicking over being late for a math test.

But some of the dreams were now much more unpleasant. Not because they had grown darker. No, they were just as dark as before; but now she didn't like the dark as much. She was beginning to have feelings about her actions, her past, and this was being reflected in her dreams.

It began with a dream about a shower. A long hot shower:

Illyana luxuriated beneath the pounding deluge of water. She hated wimpy showers, always preferred the drenching of a good waterfall like shower. The force of the water pummeling her body; symbolically sweeping away the minor filth of living and actions taken. Illyana closed her eyes and tilted her head forward and let the shower cascade over her back. Gods how she loved this shower, the heat, the steam, the force. Ahhhhhh.

The water started to cool, becoming only slight warm. Body temperature warm. The water now felt denser and more viscous. Illyana opened her eyes to behold a world in red. She was being drenched in warm salty blood. With a bit of a start she groped for the shower control, found it and turned off the crimson cascade. The onrush of blood dropped to a gruesome trickle. She scraped some of the blood from her face and hair and looked around her.

The shower was still there but the shower enclosures walls and door were gone. She looked up to see that the ceiling was now 40 feet above her head and the walls were covered with the dead bodies of her former teammates. Piping had been implanted into their bodies, providing the fluid for her hellish shower. A look of pain briefly crossed her face before it was hidden beneath her usual stoic visage.

"_Another guilt dream I guess. Damnation, I was really enjoying that shower" _Illyana hissed with some venom.

Most people find such an experience horrifying and terrorizing. It speaks of Illyana's state of mind and depths of trauma that she was rather blasé about it. She considered herself beyond most horrors.

She stepped out of the shower basin looking for some towels, none were to be had. With a sigh she wrung as much of the blood as she could from her hair and scraped off as much from her body as she could. Naked she started walking towards the only exit from the room, leaving bloody footprints. Illyana was in human form, but the bloody footprints were of cloven hooves.

The exit opened onto a hallway with two scrying mirrors running down either side. There was a closed wooden door at the end of the hallway. As Illyana walked down the hallway the mirror on the left showed frozen reflections of Illyana 1.0's past in her wake. The mirror on the right showed frozen reflections of Illyana 2.0's past. Illyana turned back to look at the hallway of frozen reflections and the bloody hoof prints when she reached the door.

"_Subtle as a brick"_ she stated with some irritation.

She turned back and opened the door. A stark room was reveled. All was white marble, empty but for some coat racks, each holding a set of clothing. The far wall was obscured by fog. The sets of clothing were:

Her old New Mutants yellow and black costume

Her old purple Hellions uniform

Her old supposed graduation costume from Xavier's school

Her Darkchilde skimpy costume

Her current prison garb and bomb jacket

Illyana looked upon the choices of garb. She thought for a few moments, and then shook her head.

"_No"_ she uttered as she walked past the choices and into the mists. _"My past defines what I am, not what I have to be". _

She groped sightless for a time in the mists. After a while she heard Peter's voice calling out. _"Is there anybody there"?_

She paused for a moment and then started to walk in the direction of his voice.

"_Peter? Brother is that you"? _ She hesitantly called out. This was dream right? Oh shards what if this is not a dream? Suddenly she became self conscious about her nudity and her blood covered body; and the source of the blood. She sought to cover her breasts and crotch with her arms and hands.

The mists parted and again she was in a stark while marble room. Peter, in his human form, had his back turned to her while calling out _"Sister"?_ He was dressed in a light blue shirt and a pair of jeans.

_"Brother I'm behind you but I'm unclothed and... um... filthy. Please don't turn around". _

_"Where are we Yana? I went to sleep and woke up here"._

_"I don't know, I thought this to be a dream but now I'm uncertain". _Please, please let this be a dream.

Peter begin to turn around. Illyana in some panic stated _" Peter no! I am not fit to be seen". _

_"But that is ok sister. I have taken care of that". _Peter finished turning around. He was eyeless. His eyes had been pulled from his head leaving just bloody holes. He held out this right hand, holding the missing eyes.

Peter smiled,_ "Now I can always look upon you snowflake and only see what I want to behold". _

Illyana stared with shock upon the self maimed Peter. She had been wrong; there were still things that could horrify her. With an half sobbed half shouted _**"NO!"**_ Illyana turned and fled back into the mists.

Illyana woke up shivering.

**Part 5: One of Danielle's many visits (part A)**

As usual Dani was in full rant.

_"I can't believe you just left us to fend for our selves. We could have died, I mean what you did was blah blah blah blah"._ Her complaints went on and on.

As visitors went Dani was not the best. Always complaining, never really listening to what was said or not said. Illyana welcomed the company, but was somewhat tired of the repetitious interaction.

Dani comes in

Dani complains

Dani gets angry

Dani can't understand how Illyana could have done what she did

Dani gets huffy

Dani storms off

Illyana felt that most of the answers to Dani's questions were actually present in the questions if Dani would just bother to look.

How could Illyana do this? Simple, Illyana would not have, Darkchilde would and did.

Why would Illyana do this? Simple, overwhelming blinding need. Combined with the inability to discern another path.

Why was she not sorry? Because she wasn't. The hole in her life, the void that defined her very existence, was filled. The pain, the endless gnawing pain was finally mitigated. She was more herself then she had ever been.

How could she do this to her friends? Easy, because until recently she really could not discern or value friendships very well. At one point, early on, even the memory of her friends caused actual convulsions.

As Illyana listened to Dani ritual diatribe (hmm I see we've gotten to the hand waving part) she reflected back upon her earliest memories post that traumatic rape of her mind and body. She toyed with the idea of actually telling Dani what had happened to her, but in the end rejected it. It was too private, too shameful, too crazy, too... demonic. To tell it would be to relive it and that was not something Illyana wished to relive. She was not proud of what had happened to her friends, in fact had started to have regrets.

She was firmly convinced that there was no do-over's for her. Forgiveness and asking for forgiveness were still very inconceivable conceits.

**BEGIN REFLECTION:**

The early times has been bad.

She had been lost to herself.

At first there had only been the now of existence. No past, no future. Illyana had hidden herself in a part of Limbo where time ran faster. There was no plan in this, it was just a good place to hide. She was not mindless but she was completely feral. Reduced to barely more than an animal demon.

There she dwelled for a length of time she could never recall afterwards.

Sometimes she forgot that memory was pain and wondered who she was. Attempts at remembrances always brought the pain, the convolutions. During one such episode another predatory demon encountered her and attempted her harm.

Illyana was damaged. Broken in mind if no longer in body.

Broken does not necessarily mean helpless.

She ate his heart.

That was when time really began for her. As she licked her fingers clean a thought bubbled out of the depths of her mind. _"It would have tasted better cooked"._

Illyana froze. Cooked? Cooked. Yes, fire. The concept of cooking blossomed in her mind. _"Yes next time I'll… cook it. Roast it over a fire"._

And with that she went and found a cave and slept for the first time in her existence without any nightmares, or dreams. Just blessed stillness.

Her nightmares terrified her. Sometimes they were of the **FATHER** and she would weep in remembered and relived anguish. Other times the dreams were about… others. The other dreams were worse, they were about pleasant things; things that could not possibly exist.

They were about some other her, a different her. The dreams always started nice, filled with people and conceits that she somehow understood while dreaming but never could comprehend when awake. Places where she was loved (?love?) instead of being hurt (?no hurt, is that possible?). Nice places (?nice?). Places she wished she could go to (Please please please let me leave this place, be anywhere but here. Be anybody but me). The dreams always ended in agony once she realized what she was dreaming about. Everything would burn to ash and she would awaken convulsing, that voice screaming in her mind **(NOT HER, YOU ARE NOT HER). **

The dreams had to be lies. Just more ways to make her hurt, to cry, to suffer.

Illyana found a purpose after that first attack. Other demons lurked in this area, her area. She needed to do something about that. In the end the other demons either fled her or frankly fed her.

N'astirh was the first demon she did not kill. He had sought her out. Attempted to capture her. He failed.

Broken did not always mean weak.

She remembered him. He was from before. She knew that she hated him, but he was the first memory that did not bring the pain. He had called her Darkchilde, a name that also did not bring the pain.

He was smart, devious, cunning. He quickly learned that broken did not mean stupid or gullible, if anything Illyana 2.0 was smarter than the original.

He also learned that Illyana did not value anything he had to say and held all of his advice to be poison. Poison she "cured" by depriving him of the means of speech.

In many ways he was the beginning of her healing. She began to get very angry, no longer willing to just hide. No, she needed to confront the... **FATHER**, the pain clawed at her but for the first time she did not convulse. The **FATHER**, again the pain but no longer controlling. No, not just the FATHER, **Belasco**.

She could finally name her hate. As she pondered it she felt a beginning of a major spell being caste. **Belasco** was trying to summon something. Summon somebodies.

It was going to be a major summoning spell. She had some time yet and this little pocket of fast time gave her even more flexibility. Purpose blossomed into vengeance, the beginning of a plan.

She saw a way to attack, and in her broken feral state it made so much sense.

**END REFLECTION:**

_"Just what the hell happened to you Illyana that could make you do that to your friends"?!_

Dani's latest verbal discharge stirred Illyana from her reflections. For once she answered without thought.

_"I died"._

_"I went to hell"._

_"No one heard my pleas"._

_"No one answered my cries"._

_"No one helped"._

_"I was..."_ she recovered herself before she shared too much _"Harmed". _

A look of sadness crossed Dani's face._ "Oh. Yea. Sorry, I forgot about that for a moment". _


	2. Chapter 2

**Snowflake on Ice**

Author's note: In the Uncanny X-men Fear Itself issues (and graphic novel) we find Kitty and Peter interacting about Illyana and Kitty appears to be quite hostile to Illyana. I can only hypothesize that there were prior interaction(s) that, off panel, resulted in Kitty having such beliefs. So I decided write a story about such an interaction that resulted in the hostility that Kitty had for Illyana for several publishing years before she started to interact it the Illyana again at the end of the Children of the Atom series.

Keep in mind that Kitty has had her own rather lengthy trauma and such events leave a person with anger that has no outlet. Illyana's actions likely gave Kitty a place to vent all of her anger.

For those who don't like the fact that Illyana and Kitty were estranged, well all I'm doing is making the actual published comics fit together as it were. Plus, I think it was actually good writing that had them estranged; but Marvel should have done more to fill in the back story as to why it happened.

Odd that it took me this long to think to write this as Illyana's estrangement from Kitty was likely one of the root causes for many of her subsequent problems.

To fully understand some of the items in this story you will have to have read the story Mosh Pit (shameless plug for another of my stories).

**Part 6 Estrangement**

Kitty wiped away angry tears as she rode the elevator up from the X-Brig. The X-Brig being several hundred feet underwater beneath Utopia (Former Asteroid M, now a small island off of San Francisco, housing most of the remaining Mutants on Earth).

She hadn't known what to expect from this first interaction with the so called Illyana. Kitty had been appalled and horrified when the demonic Illyana had captured and tortured her students in Limbo. That was before Kitty had been trapped in the BreakWorld bullet and had been forced to phase it to prevent the destruction of earth. An act that had resulted in Kitty being bonded to the Bullet and being lost for many months in space before Magneto had retrieved and freed her.

Freed her, but only to find that she could no longer unphase; which had resulted in additional months of confinement in a device that finally allowed her to regain her physical form. Now, finally free to walk and breath again, Kitty had learned just what Illyana had been up to while Kitty had been out of the picture.

It was not pretty. Illyana had almost destroyed the world in pursuit of her soul and her vengeance against the Elder gods; and left the entire team of former New Mutants traumatized.

**FLASHBACK ON KITTY'S VISIT TO ILLYANA**

This first, and now likely last, visit was an unplanned visitor for Illyana. Illyana had no warning that Kitty was about to visit. Emma considered Illyana's reaction to Kitty to be an important clue as to Illyana's internal mental state; being that it was impossible for Emma to mind probe Illyana without Illyana first dropping her shields. Something Illyana continued to refuse to do.

Illyana was sitting on her bunk behind the glass wall that allows viewing into her cell. She is, as always, wearing her grey full body prison suit with the integrated bomb jacket. She was currently listening to the Who's Behind blue eyes song which was playing at low volume. Illyana liked the song and found it somewhat descriptive of some of her the new aspects since she had regained her soul; but wished Danger would let her control the volume.

No one knows what it's like  
To be the bad man  
To be the sad man  
Behind blue eyes

No one knows what it's like  
To be hated  
To be fated  
To telling only lies

But my dreams  
They aren't as empty  
As my conscience seems to be

I have hours, only lonely  
My love is vengeance  
That's never free

...

...

... 

The music cut out and the door to her cell block opened. Illyana was mildly surprised. Visitors has always been announced before. Illyana raised her head and froze. It was Kitty. A thought crossed Illyana's mind. A fragment of a song lyric, she couldn't remember anymore when she first had first heard it _(Save me from the nothing I've become). _

This was the first time Illyana had seen Kitty since the time she had kicked everybody out of Limbo once she had heard her brother say his nickname for her (Snowflake). That name had awoken something in Illyana and she had turned from her brother in shame and kicked everybody out of Limbo and locked it tight.

Kitty was all grown up. Something Illyana had known, but never really digested until now. It had been hard enough dealing with adult versions of the New Mutants. Constant reminders of how her life had become warped. Adult Kitty however really drove it home. Another reminder of what was gone. Childhood, and so much more, lost.

Kitty was dressed in what Illyana assumed to be her field costume. A full body blue and yellow suit. Yellow boots, blue sleeves and legs, and the center torso was yellow. Rather tight and revealing, like all the X costumes were.

Kitty... did not look happy. She was scowling and her body language was one of anger as she strode half way into the cell block and stopped to stare, one could say glare, at Illyana, while crossing her arms over her chest.

Illyana met Kitty's eyes with a blank stare of her own, then briefly looked down at her gloved hands, the gloves had various devices attached to them and had cables that connected to the bomb jacket that was on her chest, manacled as it were. Illyana's briefly frowned at viewing her... bondings; then the frown vanished and Illyana raised her head back to up look Kitty in the eye once again.

Usually when somebody strode into her cell, and was silent, Illyana would play the waiting game of letting them speak first. Illyana was very good at the waiting game; so far she never been the first to speak. Glare all you want, Illyana was not intimidated by such tactics.

But not today. Illyana spoke first, with a pleasant friendly tone and a small smile.

_"Hello Katya. It's good to see you well. It's been... a long time"._

Kitty was in a mood. Verbal attack mode. I'm sure you've had such interactions. Whatever you say it's the wrong thing to say. Kitty's tone was harsh, demanding. She uncrossed her arms and pointed at Illyana with her right hand.

_"Is that it? Is that all you have to say Yana? After all that you've been doing"?_

Illyana slightly tilted her head to the left and the smile vanished. She had a slightly confused and internal searching look; this was the first time somebody had called her Yana in... well never. Not since she had been re-embodied/resurrected/created by Belasco. Illyana still was not quite sure which was the correct path to her existence. Illyana replied with a hesitant voice as if she was searching within her mind while replying and was not really paying attention.

_"Yana... I'm not... Yana. At least not the Yana you remember. Yana... didn't really make it". _

Then Illyana's abstract look vanished. _"I've... missed you Kitty. I regret you having to see me..."._ Illyana spread here hands to indicate the cell and her situation _"like this"._

Kitty wasn't really listening to what Illyana was saying. Illyana tried to smile again, but Kitty's glare washed the smile off of her face leaving just a neutral expression.

_"I can't say I've missed you much with all that I find that you've been doing. First the tortures and stealing part of Megan's soul. Then, while I'm gone, you return to assault Megan a second time, and everybody who got in your way, just so you could take that blasted Soul Sword from her that apparently had been hidden in Kurt. God I hate that sword, do you have any ideas what that sword put me through? And to just show the depths of your disregard for everybody and everything, you put the entire world at risk just for revenge. One mistake, just one and everybody would have been dead"! _

The meeting was not going in any direction that Illyana would ever have wanted. For all her planning, what to do and say to Kitty had never entered her mind. Not after that night on the Golden Gate Bridge. After that night her path had been clear and she had walked it. Walked that path of ruin and blood it to its conclusion and triumph. But now, for the very first time, Illyana started to contemplate the cost; and found herself numb to the possible implications of the cost.

_"No Kitty, one mistake and everybody would have had the prior outcome. I... changed what was gong to happen. Everybody had died. Everybody. Now... Well now everybody's alive, the Elder gods are dead, and I've regained that part of Illyana's soul that was stolen from her". _

Kitty distinctly noticed Illyana sudden reference to Illyana as some other person. She has been warned by Emma about this Illyana's tendency to refer to the prior Illyana as if she had been a different person. As if this Illyana was not really Illyana. Something Kitty was rather convinced of. Wanted to be convinced of. Such a conviction would explain Illyana's actions as she would in fact not be Kitty's Illyana, her Yana. Just somebody who looked like her and had her memories.

Why was this better from Kitty's perspective? It's much preferable to reject the evil done by a love one by having the loved one turn out to only be an imposter of the loved one. Then it's easy. The loved one stays pure, clean, innocent. And all that is evil is the fault of an imposter, problem solved. And all the nasty implicates as to what may have driven the loved one to do the deeds can be ignored. Safely locked away. Ignored.

That, and Kitty's internal guilt over the death of Illyana. The internal belief that if she had been their then Illyana would not have lost her mind, lost herself, and would not have ended up killed herself in order to save the earth. In short Survivors' guilt.

_"Can't you even pretend to be sorry"?_

Illyana began to reflect upon the years that had pasted by. Years of life that Kitty had lived on earth. This reborn Illyana, reborn as it were five years after Illyana had did, had lived traveling the timelines and learning what she needed for her vengeance. She replied slowly while contemplating the gulf of years that now separated them; even though their ages were roughly the same.

_"No. Everybody survived. Even... you Katya. Yes, I'm... pleased with the results". _

Not an answer to please Kitty, but one that certainly help reinforce the belief that this was not really Illyana.

_"How can you live with yourself? Yana never would have done this"!_

Illyana answered as honestly as she could. Honest with Kitty. Honest with Illyana.

_"She didn't. She died. Only to be brought back to be... well to die again as it were, leaving just... me. I was all that was left". _

The nuance of what Illyana was saying was lost on Kitty.

_"So you don't even try to claim to be my Yana"?_

_"No Kitty" _Illyana replied with a neutral tone and no expression on her face.

_"She died. I sought a path back to myself. I abandoned the first approach once I remembered what I once was. I was... blocked on the path I attempted to choose. So I found another way, this way". _

Kitty continued to glare. Angry. Angry with Illyana. Angry at what Illyana had done. And angry that this might, just might, be Illyana and what Kitty was doing was... wrong. Illyana, her Illyana, the Illyana that she remembered, would... would have massive problems with the things she had done. And this Illyana so did not appear to have any problems with her actions.

_"I can't accept this. I can't accept that Yana would ever have done this". _

Illyana had a slightly sad expression. Just as Peter, her brother could not understand her, Kitty could not as well. Like she needed even more proof of just how fallen, how corrupt she was. Illyana gave a small sigh.

_"Yana didn't Kitty. I did. Call me what you want, Illyana, Magik, Darkchilde. I'm not the Yana you remember, however much I wish I was". _

Kitty could only glare back.

_"God, I'm so angry at you I just can't stand talking any more. I'll... We'll talk again later". _

With that Kitty turned and walked out of the cell area, well it was more of a run.

**END FLASHBACK**

No, the visit had not gone well. That... That thing could not be Illyana. It looked like her, assuming that Illyana would look like that all grown up and had let her bangs grow out. But it didn't act like her. So cold. So... unfeeling.

Kitty thought to herself_ "Maybe I'll visit a gain in a week or so, after I've had time to think about this and spend time with Peter. I suppose I really will have to talk with Emma about this"._

Sadly this was to be the only visit. In just a few days Peter was going to become the Juggernaut, leaving Kitty beyond upset with both Peter and Illyana.

**Epilog to Kitty's Visit**

Illyana watched Kitty's departing back and then the door closing. She only replied once the door was safely shut.

_"Goodbye... Katya. I wish I could be somebody you could...". _Illyana did not finish the sentence. After a time she spoke again. "_But I don't know how anymore". _

Illyana sat and stared at the door for a very long time, before making a song request to Danger. A song she had not asked to be played before in the X-Brig. The last time she would ever play that particular song. She had liked it once.

She was paying the price for her actions and deeds. But this, for all of her planning, had not been anticipated. Illyana felt... no she would not feel, not feel this. Better to never feel again then to have to feel this.

_"Danger please play the song Someone Like You". _

The song gently filled the cell. Illyana stared at the closed cell door. Stared at it with dry blue eyes.

...

...

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited  
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.  
I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded  
That for me it isn't over.

Never mind, I'll find someone like you  
I wish nothing but the best for you too  
Don't forget me, I beg  
I'll remember you said,  
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead,  
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead"

You know how the time flies  
Only yesterday was the time of our lives

...

...


	3. Chapter 3

**Snowflake on Ice**

Author's note: A series of short vignettes on Illyana's time in the X-Brig. During her incineration she had only minor roles, yet she had major impacts. Here are some possibilities on what may have done on during her imprisonment.

Yes I keep adding stuff.

**Part 7 Assessment of the magical entities from limbo attempt to free Illyana **

The Scene: Dr Nemesis, Danger, Dr. Kavita Rao and Madison Jefferies (The X-Club science team) are all virtually meeting, think of a swarm of computer monitors in a black void, each monitor showing the face of a participant, while additional monitors scroll information.

"Well this absolutely proves our magical sensors suck" declared Dr. Nemesis, _"Those creatures hitched a ride in here and we had no idea until they exited their host. Magik could probably raise the Devil himself and we would only notice if she let us"_ Nemesis angrily concluded.

_"A bit of an exaggeration and overly dramatic as usual"_ rebutted Danger, _"It's true we did not sense anything until they exited Mr. Grim, but the sensors did detect them afterwards". _

Danger continued, "_The sensors are looking for Mrs. Rasputin to emit magical energy and she did not emit any such energy, at least none that we can detect. However, it appears that Mrs. Rasputin is able to detect magical energy and even magical entities without any magical emanations"._

_"An interesting ability all by itself"_ Dr. Rao injected _"I followed up the event with a personal interview of the subject. Here are the transcripts and the video recordings". _

Transcript Excerpt:

Visuals: Dr. Rao is sitting in a chair (yes admin types can have a chair) in the X-Brig, three feet away from Illyana's cell wall. Illyana is sitting on the cell bench, facing Dr. Rao.

**Dr. Rao:** When did you first become aware that Mr. Grim was harboring magical entities?

**Magik:** Demons.

**Dr. Rao:** Come again?

**Magik:** Demons, you called them magical entities. They were minor demons, servant imps as it were.

**Dr. Rao:** Thank you for the clarification as to the sub type, so when did you first sense the magical entities?

**Magik:** When Dr. Grim first entered the outer chamber and was going over the protocols with Danger.

**Dr. Rao:** How is that? You had no idea that Dr. Grim was there at that time. You only knew of his planned visit that day, not the time.

**Magik:** An analogy would be how you feel heat. You don't have to see the heat source to feel the heat if it is has a sufficiently intensity.

**Dr. Rao:** Yet our sensors detected nothing.

**Magik:** In that case your sensing spells were not sufficient. The magical entities, as you call them, had hidden themselves inside of Mr. Grim, and were attempting to hide their magical emanations.

POST EXAMINATION NOTE: Post Mr. Grim event telemetry examination of Magik's tension level and heartbeat monitoring showed it went from a relaxed state to one of mild tension at the time Mr. Grim exited the elevator. This data collaborates Magik's statements in this interview.

**Dr. Rao:** How were you able to sense the heat as it were?

**Magik:** I am a similar magical entity. I now scan as baseline human, but I was fully demonic at one point. I still retain many of the senses of such an entity. I sensed them and as they drew near I determined what they were and their likely motives due to their aura flavor or color as it were.

POST EXAMINATION NOTE: Magik's continued use of air quotes around the use of the words "magical entity" was counterproductive and unnecessarily sarcastic.

**Dr. Rao:** Please restrain from sarcasm Illyana. Proper creature classification is important. Using insulting terms such as demon to describe other entities is mildly racist. Do all such magical entities radiate this heat as it were?

**Magik:** Yes, as you well know, it takes an active act to hide such emanations. Mind you that there are natural predators that are able to mask their emanations, part of their nature as it were.

**Dr. Rao:** Are you able to block such emanations?

**Magik:** Yes, if I so decide.

**Dr. Rao:** Are you doing so right now?

**Magik:** No, that would be violating the spirit and intent of this incarceration.

**Dr. Rao:** Have you seen such emulations from anybody else who visits you?

**Magik:** Yes, Dani. She has magical tones as it were due to her being Hel's Valkyrie.

**Dr. Rao:** Can you see through all such attempt to hide, as it were, without casting magic?

**Magik:** No.

**Dr. Rao:** What do you see when you look at Dani?

**Magik:** Duality. I see Dani as she is; I also can see an echo, a shadow of Dani in her Valkyrie incarnation. In addition, I see her emotional state, which is mostly just being angry with me.

**Dr. Rao:** Who else has magical tones to their aura?

**Magik:** Well Meagan for one. Hmm, when Penn and Teller were here filming that episode of Bullshit for Showtime (Mutants are Bullshit) Teller was more then he appeared.

**Dr. Rao:** What do you see when you look at me?

**Magik:** I see a woman who is slight annoyed at my answers.

**Dr. Rao:** That was not necessary.

**Magik:** That is the answer to your question, you have no native magic but your aura does reveal your emotional state and it indicates slight annoyance with me. Ahh, now it shows slight disbelief and curiosity at the same time.

**Dr. Rao:** Are you able to read all people this well?

**Magik:** No, you are especially vocal at the aura level, as it were. Most people on this island tend to be very suspicious and secretive. This damps down what you can read in their aura.

**Dr. Rao:** So Mr. Grim's aura was odd?

**Magik:** Yes, I could see the aura was being falsified and there were entities hiding within him.

End of transcript

Dr. Nemesis immediately added Illyana's name to the growing list of those banded from poker night.

Additional spirited debate continued. In the end the X-Club concluded that Illyana had not tried to escape but that additional sensors were needed. For some reason Dr. Nemesis was inordinately focused upon poker.

**Part 8: The Dreaming**

Illyana dreamed:

She was back on a rocky world that circled close to a black hole, a place she had been years ago. She had just defeated the demon lord Gbz'ag after he refused to answer her questions. Rather definitively defeated in that headless kind of way.

Illyana was rather annoyed in that she had learned only a fraction of what she had sought. In the original events Illyana had briefly glanced at the sky before porting away, but in the dream she lingered starring at the sky.

It was beautiful. It was like... like a millions aurora borealis (northern lights) filling the entire horizon with just a dark hole in the center. Like every Australian opal that could ever would be had been used to paint the sky. Red, blue, green, lavender, orange, yellow, and every other possible color was there, painted across the sky. Shimmering, waving, flaring, and shining. Vincent Van Gogh would have screamed in ecstasy on such a sight and gone mad (hmm maybe he did).

_"It really is quite nice"_ Illyana whispered. _"I wonder why I didn't notice it before"?_

She stared at the sky until her neck began to hurt. She ended up laying down upon the ground using Gbz'ag body as a pillow as she admired the sky and played a childhood game of counting shooting stars as they vanished into the black abyss.

_"Mmmm now this is a nice pillow, soft and cushy in just the right places. He's more useful to me dead then alive"_ Illyana giggled to herself.

Illyana went back to watching the sky.

**Part 9: One of Danielle's many visits (Part B)**

Danger examined the visitor, _"Ok Dani, you know the drill, no touching (not like you can)_. _No passing of information about the X-Brig_. _Only one visitor at a time, unless approved by Scott, Emma, or other authorized personnel_. _No weapons or magical artifacts_. _No magical or telepathic communication_. _You are being monitored and recorded at all time, both audio and video, and by other sensors_. _Unless authorized, do not step close to the cell wall_. _ No food or drink. Oh, and no gum"._

Danielle thought the last request was rather odd (and new) but did not bother to inquire about the gum rule. _"Roger, same as always Danger, I compendia". _

The cell block access door slide open after Danger was done verifying that Danielle was not carrying any contraband. Illyana was, as always, was in cell at the end hexagonal cell access room (the other room walls hiding equipment used to confine and monitor Illyana). Illyana was half reclined on the bench leaning up against the left side wall idly twirling a few stands of hair with her right hand.

Dani walked up to the transparent cell wall, again seeing that there were still no chairs in the room (despite repeated requests to Danger). _"I guess chairs are contraband as well"_ mused Dani (in fact they were). Illyana slightly turned her head and watched Dani approach. After a few seconds of silence Illyana initiated the conversation.

_"Thanks for not asking how are you"_ Illyana said with a slight tired grin. _"We both know how I'm doing and that tired pleasantry just really doesn't work"._

_"I know"_ replied Danielle, "_Your here and not going anywhere soon"_.

Moonstar decided to try a different conversational tact this time _"What happened to your bangs?_ _I been meaning to ask, I don't recall you ever having anything but bangs"_.

Illyana glanced up at her hair and held out the stand of hair that she was twirling, _"Haircuts are controlled, just like everything else"_ Illyana gave a sarcastic grin. "_I suspect one of the staff has some odd ideas that my hair may play some aspect in my abilities; resulting in the new and not really liked hairstyle"_. Danger noted the comment and sent a text to Dr. Nemesis (Magik has noticed the hair style, likely your rather silly Samson hypothesis is null and void, reference recordings attached).

_"I guess I should be happy they don't shave my head thinking I'll repunzel my way out of here"_ Illyana ended with a slight laugh. _"You're looking good chief, things still going well with you and Sam"?_

_"Yea, when I'm not punching him. He's a good kisser, amongst other things"_ answered Dani.

Illyana dropped her hair and turned to her right, propping herself in the corner of the cell. _"I haven't seen Mr. Grim in a while, is the rest of the team still having therapy or did he just give up on talking with me"._

_"Yes the team is still in therapy"_ Dani crossed her arms and frowned as she spoke _"As you well know"_.

Illyana sighed, _"Actual Danielle I don't know, I only know what people tell me and that's not much"._

Illyana shifted, sitting up straighter "_Sooo, what's on the agenda today_" enquired Illyana.

_"I don't really know"_ replied Dani, _"It's been a few days and I thought I'd come down and make another attempt to talk some sense into you"_.

Illyana sat back with her shoulders against the cell wall. _"Dani I did what I did, I did what I believed I had to do, I did what I needed to do, it's done, nothing is going to change that, you know that"_.

Dani found the conversation returning to familiar and unsatisfying themes (like old tire tracks worn into stone). _"I know, I know"_ Dani replied while waving her hands in the air _"You did what you had to do, regardless of who got hurt, regardless of the consequences, I know._ _A sorry won't really help, but would be a start"_ Dani shouted as she stepped closer to the cell wall.

**"STEP AWAY FROM THE CELL"** Danger's voice filled the room, **"THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING"**.

_"Opps, sorry, don't want a repeat of last time"_, Dani hastily stepped backwards.

_"Thanks"_ Illyana stated with more then a little honesty".

Author's note. Illyana's cell has many levels of security. One of the first actions was to incapacitate both the cell occupant and (sometimes) the visitor as well. Incapacitation usually was electric shock, but there was other random deterrents used to keep any would be jail breakers guessing. The most unpleasant one to date was sudden jarring movement which unfortunately had resulted in a rather bloody nose for Illyana. Rather lucky that she did not have more injuries from that accident. However post concussive force analysis by Danger indicated that her nose should have broken (and the healing had progressed at an accelerated rate) so luck may not have actually had much to do with it. Wisely this little snafu was kept from Colossus and Scott personally apologized to Illyana.

_"Damn it, Illyana"_ Dani hissed at Illyana _"I don't' want to keep having the same dead end conversation over and over, I'm trying to get you to understand_. _I'm your friend, or so I always thought I was. You don't do what you did to your friends"_ she angrily concluded.

Illyana stood in her cell facing Dani, _"Dani, for what its worth I regret the harm. I did alter the plan so Amara would survive and then altered it again at the last minute so Roberto would avoid death"_.

"_So that's it, regret"_ huffed Dani, _"Just regret, nice to know we matter so much"_.

_"I'm not happy at how I had to do it" _Illyana sighed as she sat back down _"Just happy it's over"._

Dani rolled her tongue against her cheek trying to think of something to say. "_I've never asked how do you, um, what do you do to occupy your time here?_ _I mean you have access to some form of entertainment, right"?_

Illyana gave a tired smile, _"Some, one of the walls works kind of a like a terminal, its voice activated but any request is first examined by Danger_. _No internet, only selected books, (once reviewed), some music (once reviewed), some TV/film (once reviewed), no email, not IMing, no phone calls, no contact_. _Mostly, I think"_.

_"Heck I'd probably end up binge watch TV shows"_ Dani replied _"You might want to check out Angle, Grim, or even Buffy the vampire slayer"._

Illyana stared briefly at Dani, an expression of mild distaste briefly crossed her face, _"No, I don't really like such shows"_ she sighed again and went back to leaning in the corner.

Dani sighed as well, _"Illyana, why are you still here"?_ (Danger activated additional recording sensors).

_"I mean"_ Dani waved her right hand around indicating the X-Brig _"Can this really contain you?_ _When you were younger, back before you, um, back when we were all young you never seemed to be willing to accept anything like this_".

"_Where would I go"_ Illyana replied with a shrug. _"It's just as I said to those minor imps who tried to free me, I want a life_. _I want a normal, as much as that is possible, life_. _I want my friends to trust me again, that will take time, if ever_. _This appears to be the path that leads in that direction. As for breaking out_ (danger zoomed in), _why?_ _Assuming I could, what would it get me? What I want is not out there"_ Illyana gestured in a circle indicating the world, "_what I want is here"_ Illyana concluded.

_"I don't know Illyana, you burned a lot of bridges, you burned a lot of people"_ Dani said shaking her head "_trust is going to take a long time if ever"._

_"Well Dani, time I understand"_ Illyana replied (Danger sent a text message to Scott, minor hit on timeline pre-examination hypothesis, Illyana may have already examined this incarceration outcome, recommend additional randomization to alter any pre-examined timeline behaviors).

_"Well, I've got to go, Sam and I are having dinner"_ Dani concluded the visit.

_"Thanks for coming Dani, I really mean that"_ Illyana said, _"Until next time". _

**Part 10: PLAN 13**

Peter and Kitty had just departed the X-Brig to get ready for the dimensional jaunt to the Crimson Dimension while Scott worked with Danger to prep Illyana for her transfer to the surface.

_"This had better not be an attempt to get out of confinement Magik"_ Scott started to lecture Illyana. _"I'd hate to think that you're trying to manipulate this crisis to your own advantages". _

_"Scott I'm confined here by your orders and my own volition, it would be rather silly of me to try to cut and run when I'm trying to provide prove that I can be trusted" _Illyana stated while Danger continued adjusting Illyana's bomb jacket. _"I mean it when I say I want to help"._

_"Illyana, you really think it's possible that Cyttorak can be convinced to reject Cain as the Juggernaut?"_ Scott asked.

"_Uncertain but quite possible, Cyttorak is powerful but rather dim to most things"_ Illyana answered as Danger continued her modifications, "_It's quite possible that he frankly will not have noticed the intrusion of other godly influences until somebody rubs his nose in it. He tends to be rather excessively focused on his voyeuristic enjoyment of destruction and oblivious to all else"_.

Danger nodded her head at Scott, _"The harness will now accept commands from the authorized minders to permit allowed dimensional travel and the use of authorized magic"._

_"Is there anyone you can consult on this, Dr. Strange, some magic ritual, some oracles or something" _Scott inquired while double checking that bomb jacket.

_"Not in the time we have"_ Illyana answered, _"I suspect Strange is rather busy at the moment, rituals will take too much time, you appear to not want me to examine the timelines (wise choice as that would require all of my powers being unhindered) and I've already used up my three questions with the ladies". _

_"Ladies, um who are the ladies" _Scott replied.

_"Fate" _Illyana answered after a moment,_ "One of the incarnations of Fate is the Norn Witches, Urd, Verdande, and Skuld, rather appropriate considering the current situation. You can ask three questions about your future which may in fact allow you to change that future or, as all too often happens, ensnares you in that fate you are trying to escape. I regained my soul so I asked better questions then most"._

Scott considered for a moment,_ "Magik I have a secondary goal for you, assuming that Cyttorak strips Cain of the power of the Juggernaut" _Scott declared. _"The Juggernaut has been a persistent source of aggravation and dismay for the X-Men; if possible I'd like you to try to take the Juggernaut power if the opportunity arises"._

Illyana turned her head to look Scott in the eye _"And you think this good idea for somebody you've locked up? You're already concerned that these facilities can't contain me if I set my mind to it, now you want to throw in a major power upgrade"_?

"_The power of the Juggernaut is a magical force, your familiar with such and by locking away the power of the Juggernaut we prevent somebody else getting it. Frankly I don't think additional power has any real bearing on your continued confinement. It's a risk I'm willing to take at this point"._

Illyana briefly frowned in thought, it doesn't work that way. Cyttorak may be dense as the proverbial rock, but even he would notice if another hell lord tries to take the power of the Juggernaut. Illyana opened her mouth to dismiss Scott secondary plan but then closed it as she rethought the possible consequences of Scott's request.

_"Why do you need salt to gate to the Crimson dimension"_ Scott asked as they walked to the elevator, _"Why can't you just teleport"?_

_"Cyttorak would likely find that rude and presumptuous"_ Illyana slowly answered, still lost in thought, _"We want to approach him as supplicants, plus a protection circle will be needed for anyone who accompanies me, basic spell casting 101 here when venturing into such locations"_.

Illyana and Scott boarded the elevator and rode in silence, Scott focused on the crisis, Illyana in contemplation of the upcoming trip and the possible fallout if she tried to act upon Scott's request.

**Part 11: Assessment of Illyana's detection of Hell transport**

The Scene: Again Dr Nemesis, Danger, Dr. Kavita Rao, and Madison Jefferies (The X-Club science team) are virtually meeting, think of a swarm of computer monitors in a black void, each monitor showing the face of a participant, while additional monitors scroll information. Scott is monitoring anonymously.

_"Well now we have people teleporting directly into the cell block and the alarms don't go off, I think it's time to admit confining Magik this way is a farce"_ stated Dr. Nemesis. _"We should freeze her or something to make sure she's not awake"_ he concluded.

_"She detected the failed transport to Hel at a significant distance, plus she already knew where Mrs. Moonstar was located at"_ Dr. Rao added. _"Note that she was in a meditative state at the time which I think enhances her sensitivity to magic, she appears quite in tune to the act of casting spells and the consequence of the spell casting._ _In addition she shows no surprise at the team being teleported into the X-Brig_. _However, I don't believe she disabled any alarms or negated any wards"_.

_"I believe Hela disabled the alarms, not Magik. But how did Magik know where Danielle Moonstar was"_ injected Danger, _"Unless Magik had previously caste some kind of tracking spell upon Moonstar it should not have been possible. As her jailer I took the opportunity to ask her" _(Transcript Attached).

**Danger:** How did you know that Mrs. Moonstar was in Hel?

**Magik:** The force of the magical disruption. Dani was summoned/sucked into Hel by Hela rather hastily and with brute force. This caused major magical seismic waves as it were. I was able to feel the magical earthquake and discern its cause.

**Danger:** Discern how?

**Magik:** Rather hard to explain. Think of sound or taste, I tasted what the summoning desired. I heard Hela's invocation and need. I felt Dani's magical relocation. I smelled Hel.

**Danger:** And you did nothing to help?

**Magik:** I am imprisoned. I did attempt to notify you but you were busy and all communication from my cell was blocked. You might want to rethink that. I could have attempted magical communication but idea of the bomb jacket activating rather dissuaded me. Shaped charges, thermite, and napalm are just not pleasant. I did mention it to Scott when I had the opportunity, but by then the others were already gone to Hell and then apparently on to Hel. You will have to ask Scott why he did not decide release me so I could go offer aid to the group while they were in Hell and then later in Hel. I suspect he was still rather annoyed with me about the whole Juggernaut thingie and what happened to Peter.

**Danger:** You knew they were in Hel?

**Magik:** No, I knew they went to Hell, I surmised that they would eventually end up in Hel. When they returned I could sense that they came from Hel.

**Danger:** But you asked about Hell.

**Magik:** Hell was the more interesting of the two destinations, Hel was just about Hela, but Hell was an unknown. I wondered what had happened there and what they had done to escape.

**Danger:** The group responded negatively to your inquiries.

**Magik:** Yes, they were not happy that I did not come to their aid. The fact that I was locked up and restrained did not apparently matter. I guess I was supposed to do something to save the day. In fact it was actually better then I was not there. Hela would not have been very welcoming of my presence. Dani was Hela's vassal so Hela could expect and demand Dani's aid and the aid of Dani's friends. However, my presence and assistance would imply an obligation by Hela to me, a debt as it were. Hell lords never like being in debt.

**Danger:** They appear to have gotten off rather lightly in Hell. How was that possible?

**Magik:** Mephisto likes to play, rather like a cat. Moreover, he knew that they had some relationship with me. While no hell lord will ever admit to respecting another hell lord, we hell lords due tend to tread lightly around issues that directly affect other hell lords (hell wars tend to get extra messy) unless we're looking for a fight. An analogy would be that tigers do not fight over a squirrel, although they might posture and growl a lot. They fight over bigger prizes then just trivial morsels.

**Danger:** Yet you did not explain this to them.

**Magik:** They were not really interested in reasons. Dani and the others were more interested in yelling at me and blaming me for not helping then actually asking why. Again that fact that I was locked up (something all of them agreed with) did not apparently matter. This bomb jacket does tend to make one focus on the rules.

Again a spirited debate ensured. In the end the X-Club concluded that Illyana had not tried to escape but that some kind of alarm button was needed for Illyana to initiate emergency communications. Dr Nemesis of course wanted some tissue samples (he always wants tissue samples).

**Part 12: The Dreaming**

Illyana dreamed:

She heard a voice like broken glass mixed with razor blades shoved into a garbage disposal._ "Now this is what I call slumming. Wakie wakei Illyana, or can I call you Yana? You look like a Yana. Yes... let's go with Yana". _

Illyana opened one eye to see Mephisto leaning against the other side of her cell, his gleefully sarcastic self all dressed in a red Tuxedo.

_"Yes"?_ Illyana mildly inquired, her relaxed body posture a lie. She was tense, very tense.

_"Just wanted to stop by and have a little chat. So don't love what you've done with the place. And the staff, well less said the better. Yana, Yana, Yana, why you put up with this I'll never understand. So monkish, so austere. So un-befitting for one of your stature. So futile. Been there, done that, burned the tee-shirt"._

Illyana sat up on her cell cot, back against the wall._ "Three times I shall ask, by the third you must answer. Why are you here Demon"?_

_"Can't a fellow drop by to say hello? No? Well it was worth a try. I so enjoyed that little side trip that your mispronouncing friends took. Mind you Dougie really needs to work on proper enunciation, as we both know it's the little things that count. Got me to thinking, I could really use some new talent as it were. Yes I have absolutely zillions, zillions I say, of minions and other meats for the slaughter. But you, now you aren't just a contender. You my dear are an artiest. How you took down the Elder Gods (about time those senile old has-beens were dealt with), well that gets a girlie noticed. Punching way way above your weight class. Would love to have you on team Mephisto. Just think of the things we could do, entities we could slay, creatures we could grind beneath our feet. Um, unless you prefer the whole hooves thingie, never did like hooves myself"._

Illyana only briefly replied._ "A second time I ask. Why are you here Demon"?_

_"Hmm, jail house lawyering it I see. You were much more eloquent with, oh what was his name? Let me see, Nagif? No, Bubzikalik? No no no. Azele! Ahh it was Azele. Remember back when Azele as trying to sell you some information about your old pendent? Let's see, as I recall he asked you what you'd give for the information. And you said (...), Yana that was your cue to answer, you said (...). Hmm, won't play along, oh well, you said his heart after you eviscerated him. Ha ha, now that's negotiation! That's the kind of outside the box thinking we respect on team Mephisto". _

Illyana replied._ "A third time I ask. Why are you here Demon"?_

Mephisto adjusted his bow tie._ "Humph. You are never any fun at all Yana. Well, I couldn't help but notice that you've done nothing about the agreement between Amara and myself other then warn her that one time. Back when she returned from Hel and they all took turns yelling at you. Does that mean your ok with this"?_

Illyana replied._ "No. But Amara is an adult and can make her own decisions. I remind you that I know the rules almost as well as you do. Remember that"._

Mephisto snorted in dismissal. _"Yes yes, rules are rules, always the rules. Hmm 2 and 0, good streak you've got going there but don't get any ideas. Well got to go, hot date and all and I do mean flaming! Toodles"._

With that Mephisto faded away and Illyana found herself waking up in her cell drenched in a cold sweat.


	4. Chapter 4

**Snowflake on Ice**

Author's note: Illyana's time in the X-Brig was necessary but truly a classic example of over reliance upon telepathy. Illyana's massive issues were completely misunderstood and misdiagnosed.

**Part 13: Psych Evaluation by Emma**

Scott walked into the dining room direct from his morning shower, vigorously drying his hair with a towel. He was dressed in his usual white robe (with the inevitable little X in a circle over the heart). Emma was already at the breakfast table drinking her morning tea and nibbling on some grapes and cheese.

"_Morning Hon_" Scott murmured as he hugged her from behind and kissed the top of her head.

"_Mmm, nice"_ Emma murmured as she tilted her head back and they exchanged a long kiss.

"_You're up early"_ Scott said as he sat down next to her.

_"Wanted to put the finishing touches on Illyana's psych eval"_ Emma answered, _"The X-Club has examined her physically and the Cuckoos and I did a 360 psych eval while asking her questions and doing various tests"_.

There was a gap in the conversation for a few long seconds until Scott prompted _"And"_?

Emma sighed, _"It's complicated, she's apologetic but unrepentant. _ _She appears be telling the truth, as much as the girls and I can determine, but her psyche is complex and contradictory. Even worse, I'd have to say she's one of the biggest abuse victims I've ever sensed_".

_"How? Her time in limbo I hope"_ Scott asked as his eye brows narrowed.

_"I believe so, but this is where it gets complicated. We know very little of how she came to be re-embodied, but I believe it was bad, very bad. She has many of the symptoms of suppressed trauma. Worse, there is the intense internalized self loathing. Now mix this all up in a nice demonic flavored stew and it becomes very hard to discern what are real issues and what is just psychic noise related to a very odd and unique mental state. Another interesting point is that emotionally she is still mostly 17ish years old. She has adult motivations and understanding, but her human formative time is still mostly from the past". _

_"Did she allow you to mind probe her" _Scott inquired after a few seconds.

_"Heavens no, we didn't even ask"_ Emma answered, "_Neither I or the girls had any desire to do more then surface probing. There's a lot in there that is highly unpleasant, likely partially what she experienced in limbo and on her timeline travels, but mostly the whole demonic thing". _

_"Anything odd or unusual Emma, you look troubled" _Scott asked.

Emma reflected upon the Rorschach and other tests. They had been straight forward with the usual dull answers (the intent was to more stimulate mental emulations so as to later correlate the answers with mental state). Basic look at this ink blot and give an answer.

**BEGIN REFLECTION**

_"Cloud"_

_"Sunny sky"_

_"Gum"_

_"Magneto blowing up a city"_

_"More gum"_

_"Phoenix blowing up a city"_

_"Dani lecturing me"_

_"Another city going by-by"_

_"Illyana I'd like you to please take this more seriously. I understand the desire to be flippant but please actually look at the cards before giving an answer"_ Emma rebuked.

Emma was sitting in a chair facing Illyana who was sitting on her bunk facing Emma; the Cuckoos were in the cell block annex area with Danger, their hive mind linked with Emma. There is a small table in front of Emma holding the Rorschach cards. Emma was, of course, dressed in her usual white conservative stripper like attire (including a small cape). The air conditioning can be heard faintly rattling in the background.

_"Fine"_ Illyana had grumbled.

"_Ok, how about this one"_ Emma showed a card and Illyana stared at it for a second and then answered, "_Red fanged Orketch in mid strike"_.

_"Um, ok what is an Orketch" _asked Emma as she turned the card to look at it herself.

_"Minor predatory demon, hunts in packs"_ answered Illyana. _Cuckoos hive mind examination: (Passive, no twinges, bored. We continue to see none of this jitter you asked us to look for)._

_"Ok how about this one"_ Emma showed another card and again Illyana stared at it for a second and then answered.

_"Fire strike incantation"._ _Cuckoos: (Slight satisfaction, possible zapping of something, no jitter, and We're bored too)._

_"And this one"_ Emma showed another card and again Illyana stared at it for a second, then smiled for the first time.

_"Lockheed, little stinker"._

_"Lockheed? Oh Pryde's dragon" _answered Emma. _Cuckoos: (Nostalgia , some odd flickering, might this be the jitter? if so its rather minor and no different then anybody reflecting upon memories)._

_And this one"_ Emma showed another card and Illyana stared at it for a few seconds, and then answered.

_"No, next one please". _

_"What's wrong with this one"_ asked Emma as she again turned the card to look at it herself.

_"It's nothing, I just don't like what I saw"_ Illyana answered.

_"What did you see"_ Emma asked.

_"Nothing that I'm going to share"_ replied Illyana, _"Next one"._ _Cuckoos: (Ouch , unpleasant recollections, not sure if its her doing something or having something done to her. No jitter, in fact she's flat lining as if she is suppressing the remembrances, unpleasant sexual overtones, images of a child crying. Yuck, please move on)._

_"Ok how about this one"_ Emma showed another card and again Illyana stared at it for a second, then sat back with a smile and a slight laugh.

_"You, I see you Mrs. Frost". _

_"Me, in what way" _Emma inquired.

_"Hmm, funny, I suppose you don't know the full details of the story_. _Remember the time that you kidnapped Kitty, well I... I mean the original Illyana, traveled on the astral plain to see how Kitty was doing. Kitty was confined in a chair while you were playing mental games with her, telling her that you were going to mentally brainwash her to join your group of Hellions. Kitty was able to see Illyana for some reason and this apparently allowed you to see me as well. You hit Illyana with a psychic blast and that completely disrupted our psyche"._

_"That was the time the new mutants, and later Kitty, first learned that I was a sorceress. That blast put Illyana into a kind of mystic shock and some of her inner Ids were briefly let loose in physical form. The new mutants were already slightly scared of me and the Ids terrorized them. I don't think the new mutants ever really stopped being scared of her after that. Thanks, that little episode helped shape all of those relationships from then on. Funny I had forgotten about that moment until now. She really really resented how the New Mutants viewed her based on that unwanted glance at my inner turmoil. She was always willing not to judge and was quite frustrated how she was never granted the same curtsy. The hypocrisy of my teammate's behavior constantly hurt._ _Cuckoos: (Wow, so that's the Jitter. massive emotional cycles as well, never seen this before, sudden deep resentment and pain. It's like her mind keeps snapping into one state and then scurries away from it into a another state but only to swing back to the original state)._

Illyana sat back, placing her back against the cell wall and crossed her arms. "_You really lucked out that time Emma"_ Illyana stated.

_"How"_ Emma replied. _"You were this close to being killed by Illyana"_ Illyana stated while holding up her right hand thumb and index finger with just a tiny gap between them. _"She was going to teleport your entire school to Limbo and leave you and everybody in your school to die if I detected the slightest change in Kitty. No, no, Yana did not like anybody messing with what little she felt she had. Count yourself lucky I never detected any changes"._

Emma was taken back by both the story and the constant changes of identification. The Cuckoos issued an unnecessary mental warning Cuckoos: (Magik's psyche is really doing that jittery thing you warned us to look for. Um like really jittery. Never seen this before, she's constantly shifting mental states. We think she's flashing back through a lot of memories and most of them are not nice. She getting aggravated and focusing that aggravation on you. Be careful)

_"Do you still feel that way"_ Emma inquired after a moment while putting down the card.

Illyana glared at Emma for a few seconds, and then relaxed her stare. "_I guess not. Who am I to judge? You've apparently reformed and are one of the good guys now. Hope for us all I guess. Next card please"._ _Cuckoos: (Jitters faded, mental state however now slightly different then before the testing started, no idea what that implies)_

Emma decided to stop the Rorschach test for now and try some word association.

_"Illyana I'm going to say a word and I want you to say the first thing that comes to your mind. Please close your eyes and relax, do some deep breathing and let your mind drift. Let me know when you're ready. Some words will repeat"._

Illyana leaned back, closed her eyes and took up a meditative sitting position.

Emma mentally conversed with the Cuckoos while Illyana was relaxing.

_Emma: (Girls remember the time you got sucked into one of Illyana's dreams)_

_Cuckoos: (Do we ever. Not doing that again. No No. Bad juju in there)_

_Emma: (I warned you before, some minds are best left untouched and Illyana's is likely the top of the list. Some minds have traps and her's is extra dangerous. Many many levels and all with spikes.)_

_Cuckoos: (We know "mom". So what's the question?)._

_Emma: (Show me the images again. What you saw and heard. But not what you felt)_

_Cuckoos: (Ok. Here. What we felt is gone "thank God", you helped us erase that.)_

Emma examined the recollected dream images: Red eyes, pain, knife slashing, and other more vile things. All to hideous screams.

_Emma: (Yick yuck yuck yuck yuck. Feel befouled just seeing this again. Wait, what was that?)_

A sliver of a dream, just a few words in the screams that almost sounded like words. **Her indecipherable Not Her". **

_Emma: (Ok, that's enough of that, keep scanning and make sure that Danger is continuing the medical brain scans at the over clocked rate) _

_Cuckoos: (Ok. She says you're frying the hardware and that a complete rebuild will be needed soon)_

Emma thought upon the words from the dream and decided to add a few extra words to the word association test.

After a few minutes Illyana said "_Ready"._

Emma stated each word and waited for a reply from Illyana, there was a delay of several seconds between each reply from Illyana and the next word from Emma.

Blue Red

White Pure

Love Want

Brother Love

Self Hate

Cat Shadow

Friends Betrayed _Cuckoos: (Hmm both as betrayer and betrayed)_

Pride Katya _Cuckoos: (She heard Pryde, thoughts of her old roomie)_

Sky Fly

Fate Escape

Resurrection Rape _Cuckoo: (Major jitter spike, lots and lots of hate)_

Need Deny

Find Hide

Her Not her_ Cuckoo: (Not her, you are not her)_

Sex No

Food Eat

Love Lost

Dog Run

Child Me

Pixie Envy

Hurt Stop _Cuckoos: (AHH! live nerve. Pain. Yikes)_

Beer Yuck _Cuckoos: (Appears to have only had it once, not a fan)_

Truth Fiction

Power Abuse

Escape Why _Cuckoos: (Amused)_

Island Home

Soul Yes

Intimacy Fear

Her Not Her_ Cuckoo: (Not her, you are not her "again", odd that)_

Hate Destroy  
Food Pizza

Forgiveness How

Home Wish

Child Not

Power Choices

Blue Mood

Room Cell

Brother Blind

_"All right Illyana, we're just about done"_ Emma said; now I'd like to ask a few direct questions.

Illyana opened her eyes and stretched. _"All right, shoot"_.

_"How do you feel about your incarceration"_?

_"Resigned, slightly resentful, understand the perceived need and the requirements of leadership in that the group must be shown that something is being done about the big bad creation threatening demon"._ _Cuckoos: (Calm, back to being bored, no jitter)_

_"Is there anything you'd like"_?

_"Friendships restored, release from this cell, something better then taking sponge baths as you won't let me out of this bomb jacket, a hair cut, and watermelon bubble gum; all in that order. It's not my fault that Danger stepped on some gum and thought it was some type of magical attack. I'm not the one that left the gum on the floor"._ _Cuckoos: (She's really does want that gum)_

_"Last question, how does it feel having your soul back"_?

Illyana frowned in thought for a few seconds _"Odd. Things are both more and less clear now. Before everything was very black and white; all painted on a red canvas. I'm not talking about my vision, I can see colors just fine; but how I thought, how I perceived situations; it was all very straightforward and very stark. Now it's like waking up every few days and discovering a new color or scent or flavor. I start to question some of the decisions I've made, I start to see possible alternative plans that I might have done. I find myself becoming more like her, the Illyana of old and that both pleases me and sometimes confuses me with jumbled desires. Such is what it is to be human I suppose"._ _Cuckoos: (Jitter again but different now, It feels less random and more structured. We see a mental image of a young bird beating its wings, Hope for the future as it were)_

_"I'd like to thank you for this session Emma. At first I viewed it as just another round of hectoring but then I realized that I could probe my internal state in ways that I am unable to self probe or possibly self admit. Know thy self as such". _

_Emma: (Girls, what the heck was that whole "__**Her, you are not her**__" thing you picked up) _

_Cuckoos: (Almost a mantra, a reaction to the word)_

**END REFLECTION**

Emma answered Scott's question _"No not really. She's stable and bored. However, mentally she is not really the same person we locked up. Strange was not quiet right about the jitter, it's more like a skyscraper with most of the lights turned off. Some of the lights are always on, the rest turn off/on at random or in patterns; sometimes a light turns on and does not turn off again. Although, some of the floors appear to have a short circuit; flickering on only to spark and turn off. The girls and I believe it is more like assimilation, her soul, as it were, is slowly seeping in"._

_"In conclusion I guess she's a viable candidate for the new team you want to form". _

_"So what happens if all the lights turn on" _Scott asked after some thought?

Emma answered,_ "I don't really know, I hope that leaves her in a fully human mental state. One I think we need to influence by having more social interactions". _


	5. Chapter 5

**Snowflake on Ice**

Author's note: Apparently this is my most frequently read works by this board yet so little reviews or comments (hint hint).

**Part 14: Scott talks about the extinction team and determines if Illyana will join**

Scott sat in a chair facing Illyana's cell, he was dressed in civilian cloths (slacks, shirt, sweater and the like). The back of the chair faced Illyana, and Scott had his arms crossed on the back of the chair resting his head on his arms. Illyana was lying down on her cot, with her eyes closed and had not bothered to get up when Scott came into the cell block.

After a few seconds Illyana started the conversation _"What now Scott"?_

Scott waited a few seconds and then replied _"Illyana I'm forming a new team and I'd like you to be on it. The problem is this, can I trust you"? _

_"You don't" _Illyana answered, "_Please leave off the usual pep talk Scott. It is manifestly obvious you don't trust me". _

Illyana opened her eyes, slowly sat up on the cot, and faced Scott, _"Unless this whole bomb jacket thingie and cell is just your way of making me feel special"?_

"_No need for sarcasm Illyana"_ Scott answered with a slight grimace. _"I'd like you on the team for several reasons. You're brother will be on the team and I'd like you there to help keep him in check, and you're porting ability will allow the team to quickly relocate. Your magical abilities are also a major plus, although you will be constrained on any magical usage unless authorized. Keep in mind that when not on a mission or in training, or in a briefing, you will still be confined to this cell". _

_"Beats being in this cell all the time" _Illyana answered after some thought.

She raised her hands bringing attention to the prison garb and bomb jacket _"And this"_?

_"You will still have to wear it in the cell. When you are allowed out the __X-Club has created a modified version of your costume, the full body black and yellow suit. It has the same sensors, deterrents and explosive charges to keep you in line. It will allow you to port but you will not be allowed to remain in limbo, magic use will not be allowed unless authorized"._

_"And you talk about trust, I'm trusting you far more Scott. It would rather suck to have some mistake or misunderstanding turn me into burn toast. Oh well, count me in, if just for Peter's sake". _

The two sat looking at each other for a few seconds, Illyana felt compelled to state what should be obvious _"Scott you do know that all of your precautions are likely meaningless once I enter limbo"._

_"I was hoping you'd remind me Magik"_ Scott answered, _"I think the X-Club has some surprises even for you, but trust is earned. That was a start". _

Scott got up to go, Illyana had a slight musing look as she said_ "Hmm, I suppose the suit will do for now but I'm beginning to think about a new costume, one that combines the magical armor with something a bit more me. I suppose I'll have to wait until I have more freedom to express myself though". _

**Part 15: Illyana gets some gym time**

Scott, Danger, and Emma look down into an X-Gym danger room from the control room. The room is empty (no program running), just a 30 foot high room with a padded floor that Illyana was currently doing running floor routine gymnastics across (while holding and waving a wooden training sword). She is wearing her black and yellow full body suit (also known as the new mutant killer bee motif). Illyana has had a hair cut and has returned to her beloved bangs.

Danger has been monitoring, Emma and Scott had just come in.

_"So, how is she"_ Scott asked?

_"She appears quite physically fit"_ Danger replied, _"In fact too fit. There should at least have been some muscle tone loss after all this time. She did some routine exercises in the cell but this again demonstrates that her physical condition is not fully baseline human regardless on how she scans. She started out with some stretches. Followed by some improvisation ballet, to Prokofiev the love of three oranges of all things. Then she progressed to aggressive gymnastics accompanied by Meat Loaf I'll do anything for love but I won't do that , Aerosmith Livin' on the Edge, two Rolling Stones songs Sympathy for the Devil and Paint it black, Live and let die, and now gymnastics with sword to Image Dragons' song Demon. __All__ at excessive volume I might add". _

The lyrics to Demon could be heard pounding through the walls (so much for the sound proofing).

I wanna hide the truth  
I wanna shelter you  
But with the beast inside  
There's nowhere we can hide

...

Don't wanna let you down  
But I am hell bound  
Though this is all for you  
Don't wanna hide the truth

...

When you feel my heat  
Look into my eyes  
It's where my demons hide  
It's where my demons hide  
Don't get too close  
It's dark inside  
It's where my demons hide  
It's where my demons hide

Emma chuckled_, "I know the X-Club is probably going to go nuts trying to find hidden meanings in her song selections but I think this is just Illyana playing games with the club and anybody listening. Rather good actually, she's expressing herself. Although one might take it as a teenager playing the stereo extra loud, while being grounded, just to annoy her parents". _

_"We need to put her on gym rotation. I want her doing a work out with each Extinction team member at least once every other week"_ Scott stated as he watched Illyana perform back flips while waving the sword. _"Plus I want her working out with as many others as we can get. I want Betty to do sword exercises two times a week and once a week we need teleportation testing to make sure we have a handle on her power signature". _

_"Noted" _Danger replied._ "So far we have had more then a few outright refusals from many of the folks, but Dani appears quite willing". _

_"Likely she just wants an opportunity to punch her as part of the hand to hand training" _Emma stated with a slight laugh.

_"Damn I wish Kitty was still here" _Scott said after a few seconds, _"She'd be the perfect gym partner and social dialog instigator. Well, deal with the cards we have. Emma please meet with each of her gym partners and emphasize the need for social interaction as well as training". _

The three continued to watch as Danger activated a minor training program that resulted in various targets attempting to tackle and or trip Illyana (which she dodged and/or smacked with her training sword).

_"Oh, and Danger please turn down the volume"_ Scot concluded and turned to go.

Danger remembered one more song selection detail. _"Oh, before she started her routines she played one song and just stood there swaying to the music with her eyes closed. It was Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's version of over the rainbow. Strange considering her other selections"_.

Scott was puzzled, _"Israel who"?_

Danger replied after a quick internal internet search _"He was a Hawaiian folk singer, quite popular at one time. Here I'll play you a bit of the song"._ The song stared to play over the control room loud speakers.

...  
Someday, I wish upon a star  
Wake up where the clouds are far behind me  
Where trouble melts like lemon drops  
High above the chimney top  
That's where you'll find me

Somewhere over the rainbow  
Bluebirds fly  
And the dreams that you dare to  
Oh why, oh why can't I?

...

As the song played Emma got a contemplative look on her face and turned Scott,_ "What an odd song choice for her. I'm being to wonder if we may be missing something that should be bloody obvious". _

The song Demon ended and Illyana's next song selection started to play, I'm Too Sexy by Right Said Fred.

I'm too sexy for my love my love my love.  
Yeah baby  
Too sexy for my love  
Love's going to leave me  
I'm too sexy for my shirt  
Too sexy for my shirts  
So sexy it hurts

...

_"Ok, so what does this song imply"_ Danger rhetorically asked.

_"Again she's just having fun"_ smirked Emma.

**Part 16: Cake and small talk**

The Extinction team had returned from San Francisco and their engagement with Sinister. Emma was currently in the main infirmary having her arm dealt with; reattaching a missing limb is rather difficult. Her diamond form would make it possible but much pain and discomfort awaited her.

Illyana and Erik (Magneto) were currently in the Extinction team's meeting room. Scott and Namor were with Emma in the infirmary. Hope, Ororo, Danger, and Peter had wandered off. There had been a table setup with some light refreshments to celebrate the first deployment of the Extinction team; cake and some drinks. A celebration that had gone rather flat as Emma was injured.

Illyana was currently eating a slice of cake (Chocolate, very yummy) and was sitting in one of the chairs around the large circular table. She had been given no direction as to what to do after teleporting the team back to Utopia so was just hanging out in the room.

Erik was contemplating the refreshments, in the end he selected a diet coke and wandered over to sit next to Illyana. He started up a conversation with her.

_"Well child that did not go quite as well as one would wish". _

Illyana paused from her enjoyment of the cake (currently half eaten). _"No, disturbing man, this Sinister"._

_"Yes, but I was referring to Emma"._

_"Oh. She should be ok. That diamond form of her's allows for interesting healing opportunities". _

_"Child we have not had much opportunity to converse since your return. I'm... happy to have you back". _

Illyana had a mild look of annoyance on her face. _"Erik, former headmaster, before we continue I'd like to ask you one thing". _

_"Yes"? _ Eric replied. He knew he had offended her in some way but did not know how.

_"You were in the camps. After the years of neglect, starvation, abuse, torture, and rapes. Were any of the children really children anymore? Were you"?_

_"No" _his expression and tone were icy.One does not speak of such things to him. Not him.

_"So how did being called a child by some well meaning person make you feel"? _

Realization bloomed, and shame. _"Pain. Remembrances of what was lost, stolen, murdered. Of what was not anymore. Of what I no longer was and could never be again"._

Illyana resumed eating her cake. _"I... welcome conversing with you Erik. Please do not refer to me as a child again. I think you know why". _

_"I forgot what you... underwent. My apologies". _Damn, he cursed to himself. In her own way she's as much a child of camps as he.

_"Accepted. I wonder where Danger gone and hidden herself"?_

_"Likely with Scott and Emma"._

_"Naa, likely this is another one of their boring tests. See if I try to escape. Possible a test for us both". _

Erik had a musing expression_ "Yes, see if we plot". _

Erik eyed Illyana's much diminished slice of cake. _"The only plotting I'm currently doing involves the temptation of the cake". _

_"It's good". _Illyana replied as she ate the remainder._ "Chocolate cake always was her favorite". _

Danger walked back into the room. _"Illyana if please. Time to return to your cell". _

Illyana rose from her chair._ "See you later I guess. Back to the jacket and cell. At least I got some cake". _

**Part 17: Sweat stains on the gym mat of experience**

_"Umph"_ Illyana grunted as a particularly strong kick from Betty got past her guard and sent her falling back onto the danger room floor; her wooden Japanese katara training sword flying out of her hands as she attempted to roll with the blow.

Illyana did three rolling sideways rotations across the floor in an attempt to recover her sword. Just has her hand grasped the hilt she felt a blow on her back from Betty's wooden katara.

_"And that's the third time this session you've fallen for the same trick opening" _Betty started to lecture. _"Hips, it's all about the hips. The body goes where the hips go, not the shoulders"_.

_"Ya, ya I know, tricked me again"_ Illyana grumbled as she got back to her feet and retrieved her sword.

Both contestants were quite sweaty, although Illyana would rank much higher on the dampness scale then Betty. In part as she had on her full body costume and self contained bomb jacket while Betty's had on her rather skimpy cleavage, leg, and derriere showing purple ninja leotard.

_"Again"_ Betty stated as both took up guard positions.

...

...

A great deal of sweat later:

_"Illyana, the floors for training not sleeping. Up girl"!_

Illyana lookup up from where she was lying on the floor. Betty was bending over to look down upon her (a move she never did with male sparring partners because, well... just go Google (Betty Psylocke) images and look at her costume and you'll know why, as I said she's the purple ninja with the big... um well tracks of land).

Illyana blinked her eyes groggily while she thought, "_Why am I on the floor? Oh yea that blasted kick again". _

Illyana got to her feet or tried to at least. She groaned and sprawled back onto the floor. _"I give oh Ninja Goddess. May this unworthy supplicant please take but a few moments to recover and discover where her wits have been kicked to". _

Betty gave amused snort of derision_. "Take five then". _She walked over to where the towels were hanging from a wall (Velcro, no protruding objects to get impaled upon; Yes a lesson learned_) _and dried some of the sweat off. Illyana was good but Betty was not about to acknowledge that to Illyana quite yet.

Usually the students were supposed to be angry by this point. Twice a week Betty trained with Illyana to hone her skills and to assess her. Twice a week she mopped the floor with Illyana, although it did get a bit harder to do each time. Illyana may have been in excellent physical shape for one locked up for so long, but her sword work was rusty.

_"Where did you learn your technique from Illyana? It does not appear to come from any one school of swordplay, European or Asian. It's more of a mashup of many schools, but it's unstructured and incomplete which shows that you are not a master of multiple styles trying to blend different patterns. Your teacher must have been quite skilled"._

Illyana groaned again and wiped the sweat off her face with her right hand, thereby discovering she had a rather bloody nose as well. _"Cat, Kitty's dead Limbo counterpart. Wolverine, and others I think, trained her". _

_"She must have been impressive, how do you think her skills compared to our absent Kitty"?_

Illyana did not reply, she was looking at the blood on her hand from her nose and had a rather cross expression.

_"Finally" _thought Betty, _"I was really beginning to wonder what I'd have to do to get her upset". _

Illyana wiped off her hand on her costume, leaving a red multi fingered streak of blood. She did a shoulder and arm push while flinging her legs beneath her to spring to her feet.

_"I don't know. I never sparred with Kitty before I... died. I suspect Kitty has had more formal training then Cat ever did but Cat had greater daily need of her combat skills then Kitty does. Cat was a predator, a killer, Kitty isn't"._

Illyana somewhat shakily walked over and retrieved her sword. Betty could hear a faint hiss of pain from Illyana as Illyana bent over_. _

_"I think that last blow rattled you a bit, let's call it a day_", Betty baited the trap that oh so many students would fall for.

_"No let's have one more go, lets see if I can finally avoid that blasted kick for once". _Illyana countered.

Betty assumed her combat stance._ "And now the final lesson of the day" _she thought to herself.

Illyana suddenly paused and looked exasperated,_ "You know though Betts, it is rather annoying that you get to use all your abilities while I'm quite artificially constrained. I'm restricted to just my base physical skills while you, with all your ninja abilities, get to also utilize your telepathy to try to anticipate my every move. You can't read my mind but you can still likely gleam some of my intent. Almost like your cheating". _

Betty disliked anybody using her pet nickname other then close friends and family (it's a British thing). She also had a sudden twinge of guilt, as Illyana's accusation about her telepathy was quite true. To know the intent of an opponents attack always allowed her an edge. That edge was reduced with Illyana but it was still there.

_"What do you suggest"?_

_"I don't know, why don't you somehow restrict yourself so I have a more honest chance? You're the ninja, think of something oh mistress of the night". _

Illyana's sarcasm was beginning to annoy her, time to cut lose with all of her ninja skills. _"All right. I'll blindfold my eyes. Illyana take up position over there (she indicated a location 30 feet away). First blow wins"._

Illyana appeared hesitant_, "That doesn't seem to be a fair fight, I'll easily win"._

Betty tied her sash around her head and closed her eyes. She now was depending on her ninja trained senses of smell, sound, and touch while also depending on her telepathy to position Illyana. _"The conditions are acceptable to me, now get ready girl"._

Both combatants took position.

Betty cried _"Begin"_ and with that Illyana vanished from Betty's mental sight.

Betty only had time for a quick panicky _"Oh bloody hell, I forgot she could hide her mind like that"_ thought before it was her turn to wonder why she was lying on her back on the gym floor.

Betty groaned and took the blind fold off to see Illyana now standing over her and offering her a hand up.

Betty tried to recall what happened after she had managed to block Illyana's sword. _"You did the kick thing didn't you"._

_"Yep, finally learned it". _Illyana replied as she helped Betty to her feet.

Betty wobbled over to the towels, mentally reflecting that Illyana actually would make an excellent sparring partner for her as this would help her hone her non telepathic ninja skills. _"You've been setting me up the last few sets today haven't you"?_

Illyana gave a wicked grin,_ "Yep. As I said Cat trained me. She was a predator... and so am I. Stalking you was fun"._

Illyana grabbed a towel and started to wipe off the sweat and blood

_"Betts, I've done the whole angry student learns from the master routine before, several times in fact. So I'd appreciate it if we could focus on training instead". _

_"Oh, and don't compare Cat and Kitty again. I have... issues about it". _

**Part 18: Danger Will Robertson, Danger**

Illyana was in her cell sitting cross legged on her cot/bench meditating. She had spent the last hour or so doing this while listening to selected tracks from Phil Collins. Currently the song In the Air Tonight was playing.

Well, if you told me you were drowning  
I would not lend a hand  
I've seen your face before my friend  
But I don't know if you know who I am  
Well, I was there and I saw what you did  
I saw it with my own two eyes  
So you can wipe off that grin,  
I know where you've been  
It's all been a pack of lies

...

Danger chose that moment to interrupt. The music cut out and Danger's voice could now be heard coming from the concealed speakers.

_"Illyana do you have a few moments? I'd like to ask you some questions"._

Illyana opened her eyes, yawned, and stretched her arms. _"Sure Danger, go ahead". _

The door to Illyana's cell block opened and Danger walked into the room. She walked two thirds of the way to cell's floor to ceiling transparent wall, stopped, and crossed her arms.

Illyana had a questioning expression on her face _"Well a personal visit, that's rare. Usually you just talk over the intercom"._

_"I find that impersonal for social dialog. I elicited more detailed responses when the queries are done in person". _

Illyana stood and started some stretching exercises.

_"Your musical choices span many artists. One can derive a common theme to many of your song selections. Pain. Suffering. Loss. Rage. Anger. Violence. Those are the predominate themes in the song selections for each artist and music category; roughly ninety percent. Yet the remaining ten percent is very eclectic. Spanning the range of full instrumental to only spoken voice. This last ten percent is way outside the normalized working set of your other music selections. Are those choices random, a deliberate attempt to confuse the X-Club, or do they actually denote an actual preference"?_

_"The songs speak to my moods. My moods are complex". _

_"And your current artist selections"?_

_"Phil had a dark time in his life. It's reflected in the lyrics , in the violence of the percussion"._

_"Yet he has an extensive catalogue of what could be called happy songs; yet your Collins' music working set is exclusively angst centric songs. Why is that"?_

_"Simple. Don't like his happy songs. Too happy. Too light. Too simple. I don't have such moods". _

Danger tilted her head to one side as she watched Illyana lean against a cell wall and start to stretch her ankles.

Danger resumed the conversation after a minute of silence._ "I find the parables in our two lives and many of the actions we have both taken to be both of interest and possibly disturbing". _

_"In what way?" _Illyana replied while she continued to stretch._ "That we are both demons? Tormented at birth, imprisoned, abused, and hunted. Killers? Murderers? That we posses atrophied emotion responses other than rage and hate? Incompletely formed? Abused by our creators? Both imprisoned here by our own choices? Never killed a kid so you have me there, but then you never soul raped somebody so I guess that's bit of a wash. I suspect that I have you beat on the body count by a rather impressive number"._

_"I am no demon"_ Danger replied.

_"Technically true, but yet so accurately descriptive. You are more of a Dijon or a Gollum. Either way we are both summonings that went awry. You were meant to be intelligence without self awareness, where as I was meant to be... something quite different than what I am". _

Illyana stopped her ankle stretching and turned to face Danger. _"You don't like me"_ she said with a wicked grin. _"Fair. I don't like me either. You see a dark and blurry reflection of yourself. Such is your interest in me. How I cope, act, and interact holds potential clues for you". _

_"Do you see a reflection as well"?_

_"Of course. No wonder we don't like each other very much". _

_"I must think upon this. Of all my guests you interest me the most". _

_"Think away. If you please could you resume the music"?_

Danger walked away and exited the cell block. The next music selection commenced.

It was Phil Collins I Don't Care Anymore.

Well you can tell ev'ryone I'm a down disgrace  
Drag my name all over the place.  
I don't care anymore.  
You can tell ev'rybody 'bout the state I'm in  
You won't catch me crying 'cos I just can't win.  
I don't care anymore I don't care anymore

I don't care what you say  
I don't play the same games you play.  
...

**Part 19: I suppose even "us" monsters get used to ourselves eventually**

Henry (aka the Beast) went over the last of the revised findings in his private lab at the JGS (Jean Grey School). _"Blast it"_ he grumbled to himself,_ "Now I have to return her phone call and emails"._

Beast closed the open files on his computer and, while still grumbling to himself, placed the video call.

Emma Frost appeared in a window on the computer,_ "Emma here, ah hello Hank. I take it this is in regards to the data I sent you about Illyana"?_

_"Yes Emma, otherwise I would not be calling. I dislike any involvement with Utopia and Scott in particular but I have an obligation to my patients, even when their care has been transferred". _

Emma leaned back from the camera, _"I take it you've reviewed the transcripts, recordings, and the CAT scans taken during the interviews and compared them to the earlier data sets"._

_"Yes, I noticed you omitted any conclusions or hypotheses in the notes. I assumed you were trying to keep my analysis and conclusions free from any cross contamination". _

_"Insightful as always darling. Any thoughts Henry"?_

_"Yesss, rather interested in your opinions but I'll go first. When Illyana first returned, back when we were in Marine County, her physical brain scans show low mental activity involving emotional and identity questions. Reviewing the old scans, where red denotes high brain activity and blue low activity we see the emotional and identity sections of her brain were blue; as you know as you were there for the reviews and have the same data set as I"._

_"Now concerning you're over clocked scans, my garters that must have significantly worn out the equipment, shows the same general picture but in much finer detail and a far smaller time interval per snapshot. Well, the same brain regions are is still quite blue as it were, but disturbingly the beginning of each question/answer cycle shows a far higher level of brain activity in the emotional and identify centers. We see a rising level of neurons firing, and then we see a second series of neurons firing which appear to suppress the firing of the first set of neurons. This was only seen by the over clocking, otherwise we would continue to see only mild brain activity"._

_"My basic and overly simplified conclusion is there is some thought pattern, some meme that suppresses some of her brain activity. Selectively suppresses it as not all questions trigger the suppression pattern, only the ones that get close to historical Illyana. Also sometime the neurons continue to fire even though the suppression neurons appear to fire. I find that encouraging in that the suppression attempt appears to fail or is reduced. I take it you and the Cuckoos have still not gone into her mindscape to see what is really going on in there"._

_"No Hank, not her, not that mind. The girls got sucked in once. It was really bad for them. They were unable to terminate the session until Illyana apparently noticed them and kicked them out. Her shields work both ways. Keeps others out and thankfully keeps her in. Any ideas on what is causing the possible suppressive neuron firing"?_

_"No" _Hank grumbled while he took off his glasses and started to clean them with a cloth._ "Programming question on a possible hardware fault. Telepathy lets you get into the mindscape and change the programming as it were. Such high level thought manipulation changes the underlying neuron firing sequence, i.e. rewiring the hardware by changing the neuron firing threshold triggers. I would ordinarily guess telepathic suggestion implant or physical damage but in this case I'm leaning towards telepathic implant"._

_"As would I Hank, but I got to musing. Magic healing is not scientific. What would happen if some healing ritual went wrong? Might a thought get forced into the mindscape as the norm? We know that her re-embodiment was traumatic but we lack any real details as to what actually happened; she continues to be quite closed mouthed about it. We put her back with her former friends to try to acclimate her but that was less than successful. She keeps telling her brother that she will never really the be snowflake he knew of old, not that he's listening. If she's trying to hide something then frankly based upon her earlier achievements I'd bet we'd never find anything"._

Henry started to scratch his back with his left leg (yes he is very flexible)_ "Her statements to her brother continue to remind me of some stroke victims. As you know the stoke identity dysfunction model was actually was a major component of her attempted therapy. She had apparently lost major emotional and identity connectivity and we treated this like some brain trauma cases. The model was a good choice as it's kind of hard to find treatment programs for soul loss. That's even why I suggested that road trip with the Top Gear guys I'm pals with. It was a chance for her to get out as it were and one of the presenters had even had his own issues with brain trauma in the past. After she came back I suggested some reading for her if she was still interested in the fellows". _

_"No one of your better ideas Hank. Teaming her up with that lecher and the two kooks was a disaster all round". _

_"Clarkson is not a lecher, well... Ok a bit of a lecher. But my devious plan did work in that Richard Hammond, the presenter who had the brain damage, did end up as a casual friend with Illyana. May and I were teleconferencing the other day, going over some carburetor restorations, and he mentioned that they had not seen Yana in quite a while and was wondering what was up. I had to say she was off on a prolonged trip and I didn't know when she would be back". _

_"Illyana actually had friends and social interactions outside of Utopia? This is the first I've heard of it". _

_"Well, you and Scott were not pleased with the whole road trip and the resulting TV episode so I kind of forgot about it until now. I still maintain it was an excellent idea and great opportunity for her to have some prolonged social interacts with complete strangers. Yes I know the body count did end up rather high, but she maintained that she had a wonderful time; something that I believe is far more important then is given credit for"._

_"Emma we both now know why she was so resistant to most social interactions, she was conforming to her plan to regain her soul and was not about to let any former friendships get in the way. I understand why she was locked up, but both you and Scott disregarded my input on the incarceration environment. With her soul regained more should have been done to socialize her as now she was likely open to such input, a therapy opportunity squandered"._

Henry continued:_ "The lights turning on and off analogy the girls saw intrigues me. Sounds like the classic localized min/max neuron network learning paradigm trying to shift to a new and more advanced state. In layman's terms having an epiphany. Recommend you continue to scan at the higher resolutions"._

_"Back to the main topic, I concur with the hypothesis that brain injury combined with improper healing could result in miss-wired neuron firing sequences; but the lack of provable details leaves it only a theory". _

Author's note: I actually have a bachelors and masters degree in Computer Science with an emphasis on AI and neural network programming so this is not pure BS as it were.

**Part 20: Hope and Illyana briefly chat while waiting for a briefing**

Illyana and Hope are in the Extinction team briefing room, standing by the eastward windows that look towards the bay area.

_"So you're like the only non red headed female on this island that Namor doesn't hit on"_ Hope stated with some disbelief. "_He hits on __everyone__, well except me. Thinks I'm too young or so he says"_.

_"Namor is not one to respect boundaries"_ Illyana sniffed, _"Extreme jock syndrome. I simply explained that the next time he tried to hit on me, as it were, I'd castrate him. Force he respects". _

_"OMG you didn't say that, did you" _Hope said as she giggled.

Illyana raised one eyebrow_ "I did". _

_"And what did he do then" _Hope inquired.

_"Gave me that whole Namor would not deign to lower himself by yada yada yada imperial spiel. Boring really"_ Illyana concluded as she turned to walk to her seat at the briefing table.

Authors note: Namor liked a challenge, but a castrating blond demonic babe with an overly protective steel mutant brother who just happened to also have the powers of the Juggernaut and had anger management issues was a bit much. He also really did not like how Illyana's face had lit up as she had described just how she would perform the castration, ouch!. In addition, there was nobody else in Illyana's life that would have any angst upon being replaced by the obviously superior Namor. Namor had also reflected upon the fact that having a demonic Ex could lead to truly dreadful complications. There was one more reason, Namor was not really sure just who would end up taking who (the idea oddly excited him; which also bothered him at the same time).

**Dream 21: Was it a dream?**

Illyana dreamed. Or was it more then just a dream?

Illyana found herself sitting in a chair facing a scrying mirror. She was in full Darkchilde manifestation. Goat legs, tail, horns, red skin, incisors, and rather scantily clad as well. She found herself staring at a reflection of a younger human image of herself (17 years old), or maybe the original Illyana (also sitting in the same chair). The reflection was wearing jeans and a light blue sweater and her blond hair was done up in a ponytail.

_"Now what"_ Illyana mumbled to herself, shards these dreams get tiresome.

_"Umm hi",_ her reflection spoke. _"This is really weird"._

Illyana just raised one eyebrow in question. What now she thought to herself. Denunciations? Abuse? Oh I know, my reflection will now inflict mayhem about my person or likely slay my old friends in front of me.

_"Um no. Double yuck on that."_ the reflection answered even though Illyana had not spoken out loud. _"I know it's against the rules but I just wanted to have a chance to talk to you for once". _

Illyana replied with a glare,_ "Who are you really? I dislike being reminded of what I once was and assuming such a form for communication purposes does little to motivate my cooperation". _

_"I'm you silly" _the reflection replied with a small laugh. _"Hmm, or her, or us. We? Not really sure now that I'm think about it. This metaphysical stuff gets confusing fast". _

_"Just get it over with, I grow tired of such dreams"._

_"Umm I not doing anything nor have I been doing anything"._

_"And your purpose here? So obvious. Gee look at the demon, why can't she be like the nice pretty reflection". _

_"Back off" _Illyana's reflection replied with some heat._ "It's not my fault I look this way. This is how I looked when I, or we, died. Shards I hate this tail, and don't get me started on the horn, my skin, or the horror that is my hair". _

Illyana tilted her head slightly in confusion._ "What tail? Little miss perfect is... well perfect. Blond, blue eyed, human. And likely caring. Mustn't forget the caring"._

Now it was the reflections turn to look confused._ "Are you nuts or just blind? You're the one that looks nice. Good to see I filled out just right. You're the beautiful blue eyed, blond, and oh so human one. I'm the one stuck in demon form. Shards. Scaly skin, horns, tail, goat hooves, and a forked tongue, not to mention naked as a jay bird". _

Both Illyanas frowned at each other. _"What do you see"_ they both said in perfection unison. _"Umm"_ they both said again in perfection unison.

_"I'll go first"_ said the reflection. _"I see an adult version of the human me. Taller, chest nicely shaped but not like bovineishly large. Still wearing the New Mutants uniform, never liked that graduation costume the Professor made up. A hood for crying out loud, gee let's make it easy for somebody to sneak up on me. Still have the bangs. Good, always liked the bangs. Apparently my eyes became a slightly darker blue, looks good. What do you see"?_

_"The young human me, or her; shards now I'm confused. Before Inferno. You've got your hair in that pony tail that only Dani or I could really pull off right. You're wearing jeans and that blue sweater I always liked, the one I kept swiping from Kitty's closet"._

The two Illyanas now looked at themselves and then again at (?their?) reflections_. "But I'm a demon" _they again both said in unison.

_"OK, this is now the weirdest dream yet"_ Illyana stated as she briefly closed her eyes and rested her face in her right palm.

_"Got that right sister"_ Illyana's reflection concurred, nodding her head in agreement.

_"Great we each perceive ourselves in demonic or Darkchilde form while the other is seen as human and fully normal. Can't wait to see what Emma thinks of this assuming I ever start sharing my dreams in the first place.. Ok you want to talk. Talk. What rules"?_

_"Oh don't be coy with me. The rules. You know. Like talking to a reincarnated version of yourself. Definite no-no. Might alter the moral flow of fate and all that". _

Illyana suddenly had a thought._ "Did you die? Are you some other version of myself from some other reality or dimension"? _

_"Yes I died and no I don't think I'm from some other place. This looks and feels very familiar, although Dani has grown up to be quite the hard case bitch; perpetual PMS or something? Bertio's still cute though". _

_"Shards I'm now talking to myself. What now? I forgive myself"?_

_"Why would I do that? I never forgave myself anything. Why would I start now? How would I start"? _

_"So what now? I assume you have some advice on what I'm supposed to do or how to act"._

_"Nope, not a clue. Stuck in this cell until who know when". _

_"So now what? We merge or something and become a different entity? Are you some alternate personality I have sometimes and I don't know about"?_

_"Again nope, or maybe, or heck I don't know. I don't think I'm somebody else. Just me, or you or us; or the early part of you before... well __**THAT**__ happened. Is all the above possible? Yes I'm confused as well". _

_"Well why are you here? Assuming that this is not just yet another screwed up self delusional dream". _

_"Well things suck right now. Really suck. Everybody keeps saying how could you do that. Illyana would never have done that. You can't be the real Illyana. Well I just wanted to tell you that I wouldn't have done any better. I'd have made the exact same decisions. Heck I did make them. The old her, me, you, whatever. I'm not forgiving myself. Can't forgive myself. We both know why. But just don't think that I or she would have done any better. We didn't"._

_"That's it"?_

_"Yea, not much on the insight. You'd think dying would give you some great revelations into how things work. Well big zip on that"._

_"You're not going to suddenly turn into some kind of monster and attack me or my actions"?_

_"Naaa, we hate ourselves enough, don't need to add anything to that". _

This definitely was the oddest dream ever._ "Are you really her? Some aspect of me"?_

The reflection sighed_ "Wish I knew. Are we just another version of her, or are we really her. I don't think there really is a difference or that it even matters; never did. We just are ourselves. The us that happened after we died. I've got a weird question for you. Who's the reflection"?_

_"Umm I'd say you but now I'm not sure". _

_"Yea same here"._

The reflection smirked with a sudden idea._ "Oh I do think it's time to come up with a new uniform though. Everybody in your time appears way more exhibitionist; apart from the White Queen. She was always showing off. Enough of the full body suit, let's show some skin for once". _

_"Yea. I've been thinking the same thing...". _

It was a good dream as dreams go. Assuming it was a dream. Illyana woke up hours later (first time she actually had ever slept so late). She had vague memories of some weird kind of dream were she was talking to herself; but could not recall the details. Was just glad that is was not a nightmare. Shards the nightmares could wear on you.


	6. Chapter 6

**Snowflake on Ice**

Author's note: Nothing comes to mind.

**Part 22: I remember... I remember that's how I used to be. I used to be like you**

Emma reexamined the snippet of memory from Pixie from the time Illyana and Pixie had conversed in Limbo when Pixie had been a member of a team sent to rescue Illyana. The meaning was obvious, a reference to Illyana's lack of a soul and the recollection of her prior behaviors. But might there be a bit more to the statement?

Emma squirmed and slightly adjusted her tush. _"You'd think we could have gotten a more comfortable chair for Cerebro considering how much money was spent on this bloody thing" _she thought to herself.

Emma made the phone call to an unlisted number while extending her mind's reach all the way to the British Isles. The mind in question should be righhhht there. Now nudge it ever so slightly so her questions would be answered with no suspicions and that the subject would forget that the questions had been asked afterwards.

_"Hello Hammond residence"._

_"Hello back Mr. Hammond. This is Emma Frost from Utopia. I believe we spoke briefly a while ago after your Top Gear road trip with a member of ours, Illyana". _

_"Yes, I think I recall your phone call. How is Yana? We haven't heard from her for quite a bit and the emails keep getting an auto reply that say she is out of contact at the moment. Rather annoying that. When will she be back"?_

_"She's recently returned from a long trip. I'll make sure she checks her email. Until just recently I had not know that Illyana had kept up any contacts with you or your group. I'm somewhat surprised, she tends not to be very sociable"._

_"Yes I can understand that. May and I had rather warmed up to Yana by the end of the road trip, not quite obvious on the telly though. After the shoot I asked her if she could possible help with a problem Mindy and I were having at our home in Wales. We live out in the countryside on a small converted farm and, well... I hope you don't think me daft but some of the wee folk had apparently moved into the district and were making a right raucous about the place". _

_"And Illyana was able to help in this"?_

_"Right oh. She come over for supper the following week, lovely how that evening turned out considering all the commotion, and sorted it right out. Me and the nabs haven't had a bit of bother since. The girls took a real shine to Yana, kept asking her to play Barbie with them; you should have see Yana's face. _

_"And she kept in contact with you after this"?_

_"Yep, I think it was the girls. Yana claimed to have never really played with dolls and that she was just too old for such stuff now. Well the girls took that as a bit of a challenge and dared her to try it just once. Mindy rebuked the girls for being rude but Yana apparently changed her mind and said that she didn't mind at all and that in fact she'd like to give it a go. She apparently ended up having a fun time while me and the misses cleaned up the mess. Turns out that she spent the early years of her life on a farm and just kind of ended up liking to hang out with us for a few hours here and there. Even babysat for us a few time. She's zap the Mindy and I over to London to grab a play or a meal while she'd mind the girls"._

Emma was quite perplexed to say the least. Not only was this completely out of character of Illyana but this bordered on the farcical. Hell Lords do not babysit. Emma had to ask the question _"She asked to babysit"?_

_'"Naa, just ended up that way. The girls kept bugging us to please ask Yana to sit for them. We finally told her over lunch one weekend, we were all rounding up some sheep, that the girls really wanted her to sit them some time. Yana was rather surprised but hesitantly agreed to give it a go. Ended up working out fine". _

_"Well I was calling you about your book, the one titled (Or is that just me), I was wondering if Illyana had spoken to you about it"._

_"Available at fine booksellers everywhere". _

_"Come again"?_

_"Sorry, bad publishing joke there. Bit too many book tours. Yes Yana and I spoke about it. Seems the words Mindy and I wrote in the book resonated with Yana a bit. After my accident it took a long time for me to really recover as much as I have. Oh, um are you aware of what the book is about"?_

_"Yes, mostly about recovery from the severe brain trauma you suffered when your car crashed". _

_"Yes, bad time that. Well she showed up one Saturday night in a bit of a bother. She apparently had just read the book and really wanted to question Mindy and I about what we had both gone thought. I thought it rather odd at first, but it made more sense afterwards". _

_"Apparently she had a rather bad problem a few years back that had caused some rather dramatic behavioral changes that she, and others, had problems dealing with. She didn't say what the problem was but I assume it was a spell gone wrong or something like that. Well, it turns out she had also had a bad physical accident at the same time. She, and all her doctors, had always assumed that the bad problem was the cause of all of her, well issues; never did go into any real detail about the issues. But now she was starting to wonder if the accident might also have had something to do with her problems as well, apparently a lot of head trauma was involved. She found that my problems as documented in the book bore a resemblance to how she felt"._

Hammond continued._ "Severer brain trauma is very difficult to deal with. The memory gaps, the sudden lashing out due to rage issues, on constantly being confronted that you are no longer what you had been; I shudder at the things I apparently said to Mindy but can't ever remember doing. The emptiness of knowing you could do something but no longer remembering how to do it. These things apparently reminded her of some of her problems"._

_"Could you give me an example"?_

_"Well, one of the things we talked about was the Obo. I play a variety of musical instruments and the Obo was the one my Mum made me learn. Never really cared for it much, but when the girls arrived I dusted off my old Obo skills. Turns out a nice Obo tune can rally calm a colicky baby, who knew? Anyway, after I was mostly recovered from the accident I picked up the Obo one day to play a tune and I couldn't. It was like I'd never played. I couldn't even remember where my fingers were supposed to go. But what hurt so bad was I could remember playing the Obo. In my memories I knew how to do it, but now I just couldn't. There was something gone between the memory and the doing, a part of me was missing. From then on I tried every few weeks but there was nothing". _

_"Nothing except knowing exactly how I had been but was not. The losing hurts, the knowing it's lost hurts more, the constant reminder that you think its not lost but it's gone when you try to do it, well that's agony in that the losing is always in the present and never the past. There was just an emptiness where a piece of me used to be. Well I finally gave up on the Obo, just not worth the pain"._

_"Ever since my recovery brain trauma and stroke victims have been my charity of choice and where I try to spend my celebrity fund raising time. I was very lucky, considering the damage I got off light. But others, sends chills down my spine. To look in a mirror and not recognize the person you are. To lose the ability to even comprehend how you used to think, to act; all the while having the memories of who you used to be and are. Being left unable to figure out how to be that person again. Like I said, I got off lucky."_

_"But the worse can be friends and family, some just can't deal with fact that their friend, their loved one has been replaced by a stranger. Lots of rage issues on both sides when that happens; doesn't usually end well. They keep seeing the person who was and won't deal with the person that is. Can drive the trauma victim bonkers, the constant reminders, the unachievable expectations"._

_"Did Illyana ever say what she felt she had lost"?_

_"Nope, didn't want to pry. Yana's rather private and she's tell us in her own time, if ever. She did thank Mindy and me for sharing. But after we talked it makes more sense why she spends time with my girls and us. Yana's smart, strong, tough but she has empathy issues. My guess that's one of her problems. Can't relate anymore or acts differently then she used to. And always being around people who can't stop remembering and expecting the old you, the you that would act and do things differently then the current you just keeps the wound open. I know both from the charity work and my own journey back to myself."_

_"I think in part that's why she likes coming here from time to time. Get away from it all. We never knew her from before so we have no expectations of her other than who she is now, not who she was. The fact that we like having her here always seems to puzzle her a bit. After that I understood why she always seemed to enjoy playing Barbie with the girls and going over the rainbow with them". _

Emma was intrigued, might this be the source of Illyana odd song selection? _"Over the rainbow? You mean like in the wizard of OZ"? _

_"Oh, ah well kind of. Sorry a'bot that, the phrase kind of means fantasy make believe time here. You see back when I was injured I ended of staying a quite a long time in hospital and an even longer time in a recovery house. Even after I was able to go home I wasn't really all there as it were. Well the girls had a lot of fear and grief. Didn't know if their Dada was ever going to come home or if Dada was even going to be Dada again. Well they really liked the film Wizard of OZ and ended up playing a lot of Barbie goes over the rainbow to visit Dada. Acting out their hopes and fears. The me that was missing was over the rainbow as it were. Became a bit of an obsession for a while, they must of downloaded every variant of the song that there is, I've even heard some big Hawaiian bloke singing a version, rather nice that one. Anyhow as I recovered it became a bit more of a general play term". _

Emma gave herself a small smile of victory, ahh so that's where she heard it. The girls must have been playing it. There was some commotion on the other end of the phone a child's voice could be heard saying something while Richard was shushing somebody because he was on the phone. _ "Ok ok I'll ask her"_.

_"Sorry, that was my youngest, Willow. She wants to know how the blue birds are doing"?_

_"Um, sorry I don't really understand the question"?_

_"It's a little fad with the young ones here. Everybody belongs to a group of animals. We're the hamsters, not a big stretch that, the family Ots down the road are the Otters. Last time Yana was here Willow was asking what was the animal name of her group of friends or family. Yana said she didn't have one. Well Willow was insistent that she had to have one. Yana thought for a bit and said she lived with blue birds because they were always flying around squawking at each other and her. Oh and pecking at things. Willow thought that was funny and ever since keeps wondering what the blue birds are up to"._

Emma smiled_ "Tell her we've still squawking and flapping about harder then ever". _

_"Thanks' I tell her. Any other questions"?_

_"No, thank you Mr. Hammond, you've been very informative". _

_"Um, likely not my place, but I think you should know that I kind of think this is where Yana comes to try to play the Obo as it were; without anybody around to remind her how good she used to be at it and how terrible she might be now"._

_"Please tell Yana that the kettles always on for her, she'll know what that means. Oh, and turns out that her anti pest spell also keeps __Paparazzis__ away as well, quite like that"._

_"Goodbye Mr. Hammond, it's been a pleasure". _

Emma terminated the call and took off the Cerebro helmet. So no deep mystery or insight into the music piece after all. However, additional indications of the suspected brain trauma.

Emma fondly recalled the Wizard of OZ and how she had enjoyed it as a child herself. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's version was nice but she preferred the original Judy Garland version. Now just how did that go?

Emma did a quick internet search on Cerebro's terminal and set the MP3 song to play over the speakers.

The Wizard of OZ version of over the rainbow begin to play:

Somewhere over the rainbow way up high  
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby  
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue  
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true

Someday I'll wish upon a star  
And wake up where the clouds are far  
Behind me  
Where troubles melt like lemon drops  
Away above the chimney tops  
That's where you'll find me

_"We really are a squawking flock of birds"_ Emma thought with a laugh as we walked towards the exit.

She ended up tripping in shock with sudden insight as the last two stanzas of the song played.

Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly  
Birds fly over the rainbow. Why then, oh, why can't I?

If happy little bluebirds fly  
Beyond the rainbow why, oh, why can't I?

**Part 23: Scott gets some Kitty cat scratches**

It was past 7pm on a Friday night; Scott was in his office catching up on the last of the day's paper work (there was always more paperwork). Scott had just finished reviewing the expenses for the proceeding month (Damn, just how much spandex does this place need) when the computer prompted that there was an incoming video phone call from the Jean Gray school (from Prof Kitty).

_"Oh boy, now what"_ Scott mumbled as he clicked Accept.

_"Kitty, what can I do for you?"_ Stock spoke to the frowning Kitty Pryde_. _

_"For one you can put Magik back in her cell where she belongs"_ Kitty replied with a glare. "_I can't believe you're letting her out after what she did. Are you nuts?"_

_"Well she's in her cell as we speak. Illyana is only let out for training, briefings and missions; as you well know Kitty"_ Scott replied while leaning back in his chair. _"She is constrained at all times. Beast even reviewed and approved the constraints built into her field suit. I need her to help constrain Peter if he gets out of hand and Illyana's transport abilities are a valuable asset"_. 

_"I don't know how many times I have to explain it Scott, that's not Illyana you have locked up. I don't know what she really is, but that's not Yana". _

_"I get it Kitty, you're upset about Peter and the __Juggernaut__ and I assure you that what Illyana did is not being forgotten or glossed over. But I don't get it, you two were best friends and you've been hostile to Illyana ever since you regained the ability to unphase". _

_"Because that's not Yana, Yana died along time ago in Inferno, Illyana died later as well from the virus. That... thing is just pretending to be Yana and is manipulating you all". _

_"Ok, Kitty we've been updating some medical, personality, and physiological profiles for Illyana that first developed when she returned to stay. You were gone, lost forever we thought on that damn bullet; so we assigned her to work with some of her old teammates. Our thought was that they would help Illyana reconnect with who she was and with people in general. As we both know that did not work out quite as we thought. We completely misunderstood the level of trauma and the resulting obsessions"._

_"The only trauma I see is the trauma she causes, get real Scott"._

_"Hear me out for just a minute. Let's go back to how Inferno ended. Illyana nobly sacrificed herself to close the gateway and which resulted in her returning to her pre limbo self; however we both know that's total bull. Illyana, your Yana, died. She did sacrifice herself, that's true, but any dispassionate analysis of the events leading up to Inferno shows Illyana on a downward spiral of depression, fear, alienation and isolation". _

_"Yes she found a solution to Inferno but frankly it was not just sacrifice, it was blatant suicide. So now assume that you are Illyana and you've just killed yourself because you can't deal with what you've become, and with no perceived time gap you find yourself re-embodied literally as a demon by your prior enslaver and torturer. Frankly we think she completely lost it, total mental meltdown. Which interestingly she only partially recovers from when she hears the sound of her nickname from her beloved brother whom she had thought was dead up to just moments before she had killed herself. She regains her knowledge of self only to find that every fear she ever had on her behavior has become true. This does not excuse her actions, but it does help explain why". _

_"Scott, all the time I was unable to unphase, this so called Illyana never visited me, never tried to communicate, never reached out. I was only a short walk away. Yana would have"._

_"This in part gets back to the mental profiles. Everything shows an intense self loathing. For what she was, for what she did. This drove the obsessions to regain her soul into a massive feedback loop. She never visited you because likely you were the one person she could not handle manipulating. A major component of the profile is the hypothesis that she does not believe herself worthy, of her friends, of her brother, and likely of you. A cycle that continues"._

_"Emma, Hank, and I are beginning to believe there are some additional causes we missed. Brain trauma. We think she may have been very badly injured just after she was re-embodied and this left her with identify, memory, and emotional dysfunctions. Think stroke victim and brain damage. By the time we all encountered her she was healed enough to function and her behavior so closely matched the Darkchilde persona that the subtle indicators were missed"._

_"I just don't believe that Scott, just more evidence that she's playing all of you"._

_"Ok Kitty, for the sake of this argument let's assume that's true. What now? If you can convince me of that then we'll keep her locked up. All medical tests show that this is Illyana, memory, DNA, skills, it's her. I'll give you the chance to convince Emma and I, but I want you to come out here and spend time with Illyana, I think if anybody can talk with Illyana it would be you. We had hoped that Dani would be able establish some kind of rampart, but that just appears to be a no go. Ditto for her brother, he keeps focusing on what she was, not is and this likely is not helping. Keeps reminding her of what she is not. She's been though quite a bunch, most of which we can't even conceive of, and you would be ideal to try to reach her at a level we think nobody else can". _

_"Not happening Scott, She corrupted Peter, she'll corrupt your new team, she's not getting a chance to corrupt me". _Kitty terminated the call.

**Part 24: The Dreaming (Precursor shock)**

Illyana dreamed:

"_**I hate you"!**_

It was a familiar theme. One that had been occurring off and one for the last few weeks. Every few days the dream would occur again. Each time with a different protagonist hurling abuse, both verbal and physical upon Illyana.

"_**You deserve to die for what you've done"!**_

It had started with Pixie, no real surprise considering all that Megan had endured at Illyana's hands.

"_**You Bitch"!**_

It had then progressed to a different victim of Illyana each time. One was Anole, still screaming about his lost arm. As if it had really been her fault; his arm had been cut off before she showed up.

"_**Uncaring does not begin to describe you! Unable would likely be a start"!**_

Then it was Sam. Followed the next time by Daniela.

"_**Hate you so very much! Why don't you just DIE"!**_

Her brother had made an appearance one night. Instead of screaming abuse he had just stared at her while crying bloody tears and wearing an expression of utter betrayal and hurt. That night was extra bad.

Then it was Kitty's turn in the dream.

"_**My Yana would never do this! You could never be my Yana! You are NOT HER, NOT HER"!**_

Kitty was bad, very bad.

In all the dreams Illyana never defended her self, never tried to explain. She deserved the abuse. She had paid for it with the coin of betrayal and hurt; all but Peter. Peter she was trying to help, to save. But she couldn't explain, otherwise the lesson would be lost. She had to save him even if it cost her the one thing of value she still had, his love. **HE** was more important and **HE** had to learn the only way she knew how to explain.

"_**You unmitigated utter evil CUNT"!**_

This dream differed.

Now she was the protagonist. Railing against some yet unseen foe. The source of all the harm. Red hot hate clouded her vision.

"_**I could kill you for this"!**_

"_**I should kill you for this"!**_

"_**DIE YOU BITCH. You piece of utter filth"!**_

"_**Oh Gods I hate you, hate you so much"!**_

Her fists flailed, striking the unseen foe.

"_**How could you do that to my Brother?! How could I have done that to Him! Not Him! Shards not Him too! Not…". **_

Illyana paused in her fury, something was wrong. My brother? The fog of red rage slightly ebbed revealing the foe.

Illyana was standing in a small octagon shaped room covered in mirrors. Broken mirrors. Shards of glass now littered the bloody floor. Every bit of mirror was reflecting a different moment from her past and from the former Illyana's past. But now there was not order to the reflections, everything was mixed together.

Illyana stared at the scattered reflections eyes wide with panic. All of the reflections stared back. Her fists, embedded with shards of glass, dripped blood upon the floor. She spun about seeking an exit.

"_No! NO! __**NO!**__ What is this! Where am I? What am I? What have I been doing"!_

Everything began to glow and Illyana dropped to her knees and started to scream.

Back in the cell block Danger was notified that Illyana's monitoring sensors indicated a stage one event was happening in Illyana's cell.

Stage one was when mystical energies crossed the first alarm threshold. There was always jitter on the energy sensors around Illyana as she was in part a magical entity. Stage one events happened every week or two and usually when Illyana was dreaming. Stage one events issued a loud verbal warning to the detainee; which was always sufficient to wake her up if she was sleeping.

This time Illyana did not wake up. In fact was unable to wake up.

The bomb jacket telemetry was showing a rapid raise in heart rate and blood pressure. In addition, she was panting and her skin conductivity indicated major perspiration. Danger cursed the fact that the neurological scanner was still down (parts were on order). The scanner had died almost two weeks ago from the accumulated wear and tear due to the severe over clocking that Emma insisted upon every time she examined Illyana.

The Cuckoos had wondered what the building (metaphor for Illyana's mind) would look like if all the light were to turn on. Well they were on. Oh man were they on. Instead of some of the floors flickering on and then turning off, somebody had apparently tied down the circuit breaker as it were. Somebody wanted the lights on and those floors were staying on, regardless of the deactivation neurons in her brain firing. All of the floors.

The endless days of conferment and self examination had managed to trigger a neural network learning spasm. In technical terms the network was trying to escape a local min/max (i.e. it was trying to exceed its current understanding). In laymen terms her soul was forcible reintegrating.

If the neurological scanner had been functional it would have shown that the identify and emotional locals of her brain were no longer blue (meaning low activity). They were red, very red. And the activity was spreading thought-out the brain.

Unnoticed Illyana began to have a nose bleed.

Stage two alert sounded. There had never been an actual state two alert. Stage two alerts triggered electro shocks similar to a mild cattle prod (mild only when compared to stage 3). The shocks began right at the time Illyana started to convulse and were completely missed in the subsequent after action review.

Danger immediately notified Scott, Emma, and the X Club (per protocol). Danger did not believe this to be an escape attempt as the sensors indicated that Illyana was still in REM sleep. Illyana had had lots of opportunities to escape while on Extinction Team events and training activity; some of which were setups to test her reactions. No, this was medical according to the sensors.

Stage three alert sounded. Severe taster like shocks were now continuously administered. The convulsing Illyana was flung from her cot onto the floor face down, slamming her face down into the floor.

The electro shocks were finally able to short circuit the rising tide in her mind (this time). The sensors showed that the mystical energy levels dropping to below state one levels. The audio sensors picked up Illyana groaning.

Illyana groped for the cot and pulled herself into a sitting position on the floor, blood streaming down her face. _"Danger, what the hell just happened"_ she mumbled in some confusion. _"Were we attacked"?_

Danger coolly replied over the speakers, "_No, you apparently were having some sort of dream and triggered all kinds of magical energy sensors. You went right past to Stage 3 before the shocks shut you down. What the hell were you dreaming about"_?

Illyana never discussed her dreams or the reasons why she would never discuss her dreams. Never. Danger was quite surprised that Illyana actually answered with some detail.

Illyana blinked bleary eyes and wiped her runny nose, discovering that that snot was actually blood in the process. _"I was horrified about something, it was… shards. Shards? I... can't remember now". _

Illyana used the pillow to wipe the blood off of her face and the floor. "_It's gone. No idea". _

**Part 25: Scott talks with Illyana about the upcoming Hope battle**

Scott is sitting in a chair facing Illyana's cell. He was dressed in his combat costume. Illyana was, as usual, still in her prison garb with the bomb jacket. Illyana is sitting on her bunk facing Scott.

"_I believe the Avengers are going to come here to try to take Hope away from us"_ Scott stated. _"It won't be any half measures; they'll come with all that they got. That will likely also include Dr. Strange. Magik, I need you to come up with a way to neutralize Strange"._

_"Should be easy, after all he's only what, the sorcerer supreme of earth"_ Illyana sarcastically snorted. _"That's asking for quite a lot Scott. I assume you know what that going to mean"._

_"Yes, full access to your abilities and a completely disabled field suit" _Scott answered.

_"Not just disabled, a suit without any containment devices. After all, something disabled can always be re-enabled" _Illyana countered. _"I really don't like the idea of being a brief and poor quality imitation of the human torch. Moreover, you're going to have to disable the bindings that Strange cast on me when this whole imprisonment exercise began. That includes the ones I know about and the ones you think I don't know about. Afterwards I'll handle the ones that Strange likely cast that you don't know about. This may take some time so you may not have much time to think about this". _

_"Already have, Danger deactivate the cell and disable the bomb jacket" _Scott replied.

Scott stood up as the cell door opened and Illyana stepped out. Danger entered the cell block, walked over to Illyana and began to assist Scott in removing the bomb jacket.

_"Lima India Mars Bravo Orio Bravo X-ray"_ Scott said as they got to the final safely code. Scott and Danger removed the jacket from Illyana.

_"And"_ Illyana said as she looked at Scott. _"Remitto tibi vincula proiectus"_ Scott stated as he repeated the words Dr. Strange had taught him.

There was the sound like a breaking wine glass and the ghostly impression of a chain falling at Illyana's feet with all links broken.

_"Finally"_ Illyana murmured as she stretched and shook her head, her hair waving about, as if she was shaking off encumbrances. As she did this her prison garb morphed into her black and yellow costume.

_"Much better, now please wait a moment"_ Illyana said as she stepped through a teleportation disk.

Before Scott could question Illyana as to what she was doing another teleportation disk appeared and she stepped back into the room.

_"There all set, ready for Strange"_ Illyana declared.

_"That's it"_ Scott asked,_ "I would have thought it'd take more time"? _

_"I've been gone two days in limbo time Scott" _Illyana replied "_Setting up a trap for Strange is neither easy or quick. I'll fill you in on the details while we ride the elevator up__"_.

Scott suddenly noticed Illyana's hair was wet and he could swear he smelled jasmine shampoo, _"Did you just take a shower"_ he asked with some disbelief.

Illyana promptly materialize a small towel and started vigorously drying her hair_. "Scott, I've been in limbo for two days, plus for all these many months I've been having to clean myself using moist towelettes due to that damn bomb jacket. A long hot shower was definitely in order. Shards that felt good"_.

Scott wanted to press the issue but wisely decided this as one of these female moments (such as he frequently had with Emma) and that he should just move on.

"_We'll need to set the stage so Strange thinks I'm gong to Limbo to enable all of you to escape. If we've lucky he'll follow me"._ Illyana stated while they walked to the elevator.

**Part 26: Magik's Battle with Strange **

The scene, Dr Strange hovering in some kind of blazing limbo cavern. Illyana is off to one side of the cavern in her Darkchilde incarnation, her sword in her left hand, eyes a glow with a yellow light.

_"You're a talented girl Illyana, but did you really think you could sneak your friends out thought limbo without my noticing"_ Strange stated with a slight negative nod of his head.

_"Oh I was hoping you would notice Dr. Strange. I just wasn't sure you were actually dumb enough to come here"._ Illyana replied as worm like demons began to erupt from the ground around her. Strange mystically felt all exits from limbo close tight.

_"Surrender now Illyana, there is no way you can win this fight"_ Strange offered as he landed on the ground, _"You're simply out of your league"._

Illyana waved her sword towards Strange and the demons screamed and started to advance _"Lets try this for starters and see how you do"_ Illyana rebutted with a snarl.

_"Childishly simple"_ Strange sighed as he used an appropriate invocation from the scrolls of Vishanti. The demons shrieked and disembodied.

_**"Invoco te vincula, quasi unus impotentem"**_Strange uttered. Illyana screamed as she dropped her soul sword, which promptly faded away. She collapsed onto the burning ground while mystic energies wrapped and bound her. She ended up curled into a fetal position, within a green ball of energy.

_"Tsk, tsk, you have much to learn child"_ Strange stated he walked up to her, shaking his head. _"I placed some extra bindings upon you when you were first locked up; ones I never told Scott about. I could sense the bindings were still functional just moments ago in Utopia and when I came here. This was simply no contest at all"_ Strange finished as he stared down upon her struggling bound form. _"Guess I over estimated your abilities, well a simple fight is always the best, time to go"_.

Strange raised his hands and traveled back to earth with the bound Illyana, or so he tried. Strange and Illyana stayed right they were_. _

_"Odd, limbo is still sealed. You shouldn't be able to hold limbo closed when you are so bound" _Strange stated while staring at Illyana. Strange started to get a bad feeling, it got worse as Illyana faded away. The fires reduced themselves, leaving just a pale flickering red glow, the cavern walls now lost in darkness.

_"Tsk, tsk"_ a voiced breathed in his ear.

Strange spun around, nobody was there. Strange cast various protections and revealing spells. He could feel something wrong with the protection spells, they felt brittle and weak. The revealing spells showed nothing. An illumination incantation briefly flickered and faded out. Strange felt a very female form press tightly against his back and two arms wrapped around him like a lover; again a breathy voice in his ear

_"I guess I'm not the only one who has much to learn"._ He tried to grab the unseen arms but his hands simply went thought them as if they were not there.

_"I transferred your bindings to a facsimile that I had previously created, when I port'ed here" _the voice murmured in his ear, he felt a slight kiss on his neck. _"It took over a day to create her and to prep the spells, your bindings were quite strong. I spent the second day creating this entire setup, it's all one big interwove entrapment and binding spell. Only in limbo could I create a spell of such power". _

Strange felt a leg wrap around one of his legs, one part of his mind noted that felt like it had a foot; not a hoof. "_Remember when you did the bindings for Scott, I voluntarily participated, and I added my powers to the bindings as well. This formed a link between us, similar in how a sorcerer binds an apprentice. In this case it left you vulnerable to me"._

Strange felt a slight love bit on his earlobe_. "The final key was your attempt to invoke the bindings. Sorry about having to taking such liberties, well not really, but the ritual requires it."_ Strange could feel her face nuzzling the back of his head. Nothing he attempted physically or mystically was making any difference.

_"Now your binding reflects back upon you. You shall not be able to find me or those I hide, you shall have no power over me. __**Non videbitis me, et non viderunt. Vacate, ut dormienti**_".

Strange slowly collapsed onto the floor of the cavern, as he did so Magik slowly materialized around him, lowering him to the floor. The cavern faded away as well leaving limbo's throne room.

She laughed once tiredly, "_That was fun, wasn't completely sure that would actually work"_.

Magik stood and briefly looked down on Strange. _"Hell Lord Strange, you really need to remember what that means"_. Illyana briefly closed her eyes and gestured. Strange transformed into Illyana and Illyana to Strange, the now disguised Illyana then picked up the disguised Dr. Strange and using a dimensional relocation spell, rather then her usual porting disks, to return to Utopia.


End file.
